The Lord Is My Shepherd by Robert J. Morgan

The Lord Is My Shepherd 
by 

Robert J. Morgan (Goodreads Author)

 

To me, the most impressive feature of this book is that the author's not just a pastor--he also had years of hands-on experience caring for sheep. So if you ever wanted to read a book about the Shepherd's Prayer, written by an erstwhile shepherd, then this book's for you (as is A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, originally published in 1970).

Another notable feature of Morgan's book is his 53-word summary of the Psalm's main themes (in "prepositional slogan" form) at pages 175-176:

*Near me: My Shepherd
*Beneath me: Green pastures
*Beside me: Still waters
*Ahead of me: Righteous paths
*Within me: Restored spirits
*Against me: My enemies
*For me: His rod and staff
*Around me: A table(land)
*Upon me: Anointing oil
*Above me: Overflowing blessings
*Behind me: Goodness and Mercy
*Before me: My Father's House

Along the way, Pastor Morgan offers remarks, interpretations and anecdotes on the 23rd Psalm which help provide context and insight. Here's a few:
1) Psalm 23 is a reassurance that all three types of our needs will be met by the Good Shepherd (see also John 10): External needs (green pastures), Internal needs (restoration, comfort) and Eternal needs (Divine Goodness and Mercy) [page 36].

2) The foregoing types of needs, in turn, can be found by elaborating on the Psalm's third verse (He restoreth my soul). Respectively: He restoreth my soul...from stress; He restoreth my soul...from sorrow; He restoreth my soul...from sin [Chapter 5, pages 69-83].

3) In verse 6 (Goodness and mercy shall follow me throughout the days of my life), Pastor Morgan finds the two sides of Divine Grace: Goodness "represents all [the gifts] He bestows on us that we don't deserve. Mercy "represents all [the consequences] He withholds that we do deserve."

I enjoyed this book. I borrowed it from the library, but I wish I had a copy for my library on Scripture and Theology--it could make for a good reference.

Footnote: For further details on the ins and outs of shepherding, Pastor Morgan recommends two books: Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep: Breeds, Care, Facilities and This Was Sheep Ranching: Yesterday and Today, by Virginia Paul

Review of Stephen Grosz "The Examined Life"

The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves
by

Stephen Grosz

Tim's review

May 22, 2019 

"[O]ur job is to try...to find a useful question" Stephen Grosz (page 128)

An amazing set of 31 real-life stories about counseling and helping patients make therapeutic progress.

Four main themes jumped out at me from the book. This "review" is basically in note-taking/outline form:

(1) Grosz's Working Hypothesis: Therapy is about helping the client to "tell their Story"

"What if a person can't tell a story about his sorrows? What if his story tells him? When we cannot find a way of telling our story, our story tells us -- we dream these stories, we develop symptoms, or we find ourselves acting in ways we don't understand" (page 10)

(2) Grosz's Goal: Use the dreams/symptoms/behavior to find the story and help the client find words (and courage and insight) to tell that story

(a) Questions: What does the dream mean? "What possible psychological purpose could this behavior serve?" (page 41) What response (from others) are the symptoms supposed to provoke? (A 10-year-old's bedwetting is one example: pages 136-141)

(b) "Our job is to try...to find a useful question" (page 128)

(c) "Does that dream remind you of anything?" (page 12)

(d) Interpreting the dream: what subconscious conflict might the dream represent? Examples: pages 93, 99, 193-195, 199, 201-202, 213,214

(e) Children often use play (or art) to "free-associate":
"The idea is that a child's play...can help a child to express the emotions they might not be able to put into words" (page 160).

(2) Grosz's Goals at a First Meeting ("initial consultation")

(a) How does the counselor, Grosz, feel going into a First Meeting? A "mixture of anticipation, curiosity and vague unease" (page 74)

(b) What are the counselor's goals of the First Meeting?
Grosz hopes that he learns "the patient's [basic] life story [and] the history of his problem" (page 49); he also feels that it's "most important" that "the patient should leave our first meeting feeling heard" (page 49)

(c) Why do clients seek therapy in the first place?
*"I'm not living my life as fully as possible, but I'm not sure what I'd like to be" (page 96)
** Behavior finally causes a painful loss: Philip, a pathological liar, enters treatment when his 7-year-old daughter catches him in a lie and looks upon him with disgust (page 40)
*** Because we "felt trapped by things we find ourselves thinking or doing, caught by our own impulses or foolish choices; ensnared in some unhappiness or fear; imprisoned by our own history (pages xi-xiii)

(3) What does it mean to change--and why is change difficult for people?
"I want to change, but not if it means changing" ... "there cannot be change without loss" (page xii)

(a) Ways to change (page 114):
* "Fixing" oneself
** Repairing relationships (either with people around us or people from our pasts)

(b) Change is also difficult because people around us might not want us to change
* The client's problems allow the client's family to focus on her problems--and ignore their own problems (page 140)

(4) Miscellaneous Themes

(a) Silence comes in several types and serves various functions (pages 200-205)

(b) Boredom can be a very useful therapeutic signal (page 147)

(c) Impasses/Deadlocks have a purpose in therapy (page 164)

(d) Some people are unaware of their own emotions (pages 25, 89)

Review of The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison

The Kiss
by

Kathryn Harrison

 

 

"I somehow miss what I don't want to see--that my father himself is selfish, a narcissist, dangerous" (page 80)

Biologically, it was incest. Psychologically, it was devastating. Emotionally, it was toxic.

It begins when 20-year-old Kathryn Harrison's father, after 10 years' estrangement, travels to meet her--and forces an assaultive kiss on her. "I know it is wrong," Harrison recounts, "and its wrongness is what lets me know, too, that it is a secret" (page 69). The experience leaves the daughter isolated: She abandons school; she flees from her friends; she walls off her boyfriend ("Everything," she says, "takes more energy than I have" (page 75)). The experience makes her physically sick: shingles, narcoleptic sleep patterns, pneumonia, bulimia (pages 118, 166, 170). She begins cutting herself: "It's...a desire...for manageable pain, bleeding that can be stanched (page 153). The experience leaves her alienated from herself: "I can see past and through [the kiss] to the life I used to have, but, mysteriously, the kiss separates me from that life" (page 71).

What made the daughter so vulnerable that her father could so cruelly exploit her? Harrison spent her girlhood and teenage years trying to make herself invisible (even to the point of employing anorexia to "make [her]self smaller and smaller until [she] disappear[s]" (page 39)). And yet, her abusive father's eyes "somehow...see me into being" (page 63). The daughter has also been taught to remain silent: "I begin to learn the wisdom of keeping my feelings to myself" (page 36). In a world of pain, starved of love from her mother, the daughter begins stealing suicide-intended Seconals at age 14, and is anorexic a year later.

The very thought of such a suffering young woman being targeted by her long-estranged father--who cruelly exploits her hunger to be loved and appreciated and seen--makes for devastating reading. It will be a rare reader who can read this memoir without tears.

The daughter finally frees herself from her narcissistic father's vortex--thank heaven for small favors--and manages to craft a married family life of her own. That Kathryn Harrison could manage this, after all she's suffered, testifies to the authors astonishing inner resilience.

A unique book--a singular portrait of the racking torture a father's exploitation can cause a child.

JE Neighbors, Hatchet Job (1988)

Hatchet Job

by

J. E. Neighbors

 J.E. Neighbors, an English teacher and lifelong small-town Missouri native, pens an interesting yarn in this little mystery novel.

The concept is enticing: A man is murdered in a darkened funhouse during a Halloween event. And there are suspects galore: the man was a total scoundrel, dredging up people's deep dark secrets and using them for blackmail.

A pair of amusing local sheriffs push through the procedural paces. Spoiler Alert: They finally figure out who the killer is. :D

Are Mystery Novels Doomed to be Dull?

B is for Burglar (Kinsey Millhone, #2)
by

Sue Grafton

 
Are murder mysteries doomed to be boring? "I set out to read [a mystery novel] in the hope of tasting some novel excitement," wrote Edmund Wilson in a classic attack on the mystery genre, "and I declare it seems to me one of the dullest books I have ever encountered in any field."

Intriguingly, Sue Grafton actually confirms Wilson's indictment, in part: the mystery novel has great potential to become dull and boring. Why? Because, as detective Kinsey Millhone herself explains, most detective-investigations are tedious affairs:

Most of my investigations proceed just like this. Endless notes, endless sources checked and rechecked, pursuing leads that sometimes go no place...plodding along methodically ... facts accumulated painstakingly. (page 33)

So a mystery writer needs to add some spice to the "ploddingly painstaking" process of detection. What is Grafton's "secret spice" to prevent the reader's eyes from glazing over and attention to wander? Several elements come to light:

Dollops of Psychology: "Insecure people have a special sensitivity for anything that finally confirms their own low opinion of themselves" (page 31; see also pages 60, 102, 106, 184, 187 and 198)

Sparkling Similes"I could feel my smile begin to set like a pan of fudge" (page 81; see also pages 71, 80, 89, 97, 101, 131, 140, 160-161, 168, 182)

A Sense of Humor: "California has over three thousand homicide victims annually, and of those, fully two-thirds are slain by friends, acquaintances, or relatives, which makes you wonder if you might be better off as a friendless orphan in this state" (page 113; see also the similes above and pages 66, 168 and 185)

Sharp Word Choice: "Rosie appeared again, simpering coquettishly" (page 85; see also pages 104, 114, 164 and 202)

Intriguing Displays of Expertise: Kinsey Millhone has some intriguing talents and interests, including: electricity (page 64), lock-picking (page 115), firearms (page 140), jogging (page 150), and even the anatomy of a window (page 206)

All in all, I found Grafton's spices effective--after all, I actually finished the book! :) Kinsey Millhone is indeed and entertaining--even sexy--woman to watch in action. Other characters encountered in the book are also studded with amusing eccentricities. And Grafton's prose is polished--and, at times, quite evocative.

I think I'll try out another Sue Grafton novel--or at least one of her short stories. (As I've since learned from her Kinsey and Me, Grafton's quite an intriguing person, herself.)