What's on your nightstand?

Since we started the LENS blog in August, I've been wondering what sort of material to include. At a recent workshop on marketing, Beth Lewis (CEO of Augsburg/Fortress) quoted David Carr of the New York Times, "For those of you who don't have a blog yet, think of one as a large, yellow Labrador: friendly, fun, not all that bright, but constantly demanding your attention." If that's true, then I've been guilty of neglecting my blog ... mostly because I wasn't sure anyone would be interested in reading about the latest developments in "continuing theological education."

However, a recent First Call Theological Education workshop opened my eyes with a lively discussion that took place one morning. I put together a one-hour presentation called A Conversation About Context in which I listed a number of resources - mostly books but also artists and a few films - that folks who were new to the Pacific Northwest could look at in order to learn more about the context in which we carry on our ministry. Are we in the "None Zone" as Patricia Killen (Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone, Altamira Press, 2004) calls it, in which our most defining spiritual feature is that we claim to be spiritual but belong to no organized religious community? Are we in "Salmon Nation" as the folks at Ecotrust (www.salmonnation.com) call it - a place, a state mind, and a gift? Or are we something in between?

Well the conversation got real interesting, especially when I asked folks, "What's on your nightstand?" I recieved any number of suggestions to add to the list (which makes no claim to be compreshensive). We've posted the list on the web page under A Conversation About Context and will keep adding to it as suggestions come in.

But want to extend the invitation to all of you. What's on your nightstand? What books, films, magazines, or websites have you found useful in your ministry? What authors have stretched you and forced you to take your theological imagination out of mothballs? What writers and artists have given you a new way to look at life and ministry? You can post comments on this blog or simply email me. As a way to get you started, here are four books that are currently on my nightstand along with very brief descriptions:

Sharon Daloz Parks, Leadership Can Be Taught (Harvard Business School Press, 2005). At the urging of Pr. John Beck of Portland, we selected this book for the First Call Theological Education workshop this year and invited the author to spend a day with us. Without a doubt, its one of the best things I've read on leadership in a long time. Highly recommended.

John Hart, Sacramental Commons: Christian Ecological Ethics (Rowan and Littlefield, 2006). Pr. Terry Moe of Portland loaned me his copy and I liked it so much, I ordered my own so I would mark it up! John Hart was responsible for much of the theological structure and thinking in the Catholic Bishops' 2001 Pastoral Letter on the Columbia River. If we thought of creation in a sacramental way, would we take better care of it? Hart thinks so and I agree.

Barry Lopez, editor, Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape (Trinity University Press, 2006) Lopez and managing editor, Debra Gwartney invited writers from throughout the west to provide short descriptions of place names, geographical features, and other words and phrases we use to describe the land. The result is a new way of understanding this place we call the American West.

Jim Harrison, Returning to Earth (Grove Press, 2007) If you're not familiar with Harrison, you're missing out on arguably the best living American writer today. Harrison is a man of big appetites who is equally at home writing poetry, essays, novellas (Legends of the Fall) and food columns. If he sounds a little too macho for your taste, he also creates convincing female characters in the first person. This novel is a kind of sequel to an earlier novel - True North - which is also set in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. What does it mean to die a good death? The characters in this novel struggle with that question.

So that's what's on my nightstand. How about yours?