Wrestling with Angels: Adventures in Faith and Doubt was written in 2000 (as "Living the Questions") and released again by Harvest House in 2008.
I first had a taste of Carolyn Arends' creativity a few years ago. The godparents of one of our kids gave us a copy of her CD "We've Been Waiting for You". She has a good sense of lyric, melody and storytelling. Since then a few more of her CD's have graced the felix clan music collection, but this is the first time I have read one of her books.
When we shy away from the Mystery, when we reduce God's vast proportions to a more manageable size, we also limit our experience of wonder (which is doubt's more happily disposed twin).
p 218
Wrestling with Angels takes its cue from the story of Jacob wrestling at the river Jabbok. The book is a series of stories highlighting various people, memories and events in Arends' life. In each story there is a kind of encounter with God in which Arends is invited into the mystery of God. Arends in turn invites the reader into that mystery. If the book has a theme, it is simply that. She chronicles her own journey of faith with its doubts and crises, its moments of joy and revelation.
Her writing is clear and sometimes poetic without being overly sentimental. She has a few great turns of phrase. Some of the stories invite us to consider the presence of God in the ordinary and even ridiculous (Mom falling into the water in The Fish Pond). Others touch on the mystery of God in the face of family difficulties. In one chapter, Forget-Me-Nots, she tells in plain and unadorned language the story of a her grandfather suffering from Alzheimer's. She writes both about the wonder of discovery the holy in everyday life, and the presence of God in the tragic and confused.
I suppose the book is a bit like the person: a series of chapters which, collectively, are connected and integrated from God's point of view, if not always from our point of view. I think that is at least one of the hidden gems of the book. Readers looking for a straightforward biography of a "good Christian artist" will possibly be disappointed - it's not that kind of writing.
Arends points the reader clearly in the direction of the mystery of the Incarnate Christ. She simply gets us there via a more scenic route than readers of contemporary Christian books might be used to. And she invites us to consider stepping onto that route ourselves.
4 out of 5
Comments