Disquiet Time

September 15, 2014
The subtitle says it all as it captures the effect the stories in the Good Book have on the voices represented here. For the contributors in this very personal collection, the Bible acts as a frameworka spiritual skeleton of sortsto base their lives on even though their own experiences may feel like a pile of disconnected fragments that have no relation to one another, as Eugene H. Peterson so aptly writes in the foreword. The writers come from all walks of life nonconformists and oddballs and approach the Bible in their own idiosyncratic ways. But while the writers may take the Bible seriously, that doesn't mean they can't have fun in the process, for, as the subtitle also suggests, the moods reflected here are often irreverent, even playful. Karen Swallow Prior, for example, insists that the Bible is full of crap literally. Scatological references are dropped throughout like fertilizer on a field. Other topics covered include not only the end-times, grace, redemption, salvation, and solitude but also doubt and skepticism as well as the many faces of Christianity, from Catholicism to the Dutch Reformed Church. A refreshing read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)