Moby Dick by Herman Melville

As a Literature major at Colorado State, it was almost embarrassing to say that I had never even attempted to read Moby Dick throughout my career. It was joked about in my American Literature class that lit. majors should get patches for their accomplishments, a big white whale to signify the feat of this reputed intense and boring novel.

So I thought I would begin. Actually, my husband started it for me, reading the first chapter in his calm and strong voice. I was hooked. Melville hooks you with "Call me Ishmael" and then continues to describe the reason for the ocean and the calling to sea with such detail alluding to ancient Greek myths and describing the romanticism of the ocean saying, "Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded together forever" (4).

Ishmael first embarks to Nantucket to find a whaling ship to set sea with (as the sea has been calling his name) and runs into a most curious bed companion, a cannibal. As Ishmael throws his prejudices to the wind, he sits down with Queequeg the Cannibal and smokes his tomahawk becoming fast and lasting bosom friends for life.

I miss school obviously. Regardless, Moby Dick has turned into not being the most boring and tedious book to read but is captivating with Melville's descriptions of passing characters through Nantucket and the world. If one ever wants to impress other stuffy lit majors at a party, take some time to read this lovely classic! It will probably take me quite a few months though so allot some time for yourself depending on your reading speed.

In His Service (cont.)

As children, we were taught to beware and watch out for those people who will claim to be prophets, who hear God's voice and see visions of the future. That was always so mystical and sometimes compared to witch craft. We were told of the Antichrist and how he will one day claim to be the Returned King. We as Christians needed to keep our eyes open for him so as not to be fooled. 

We were taught of the prophets in the OT and how they heard the Word of God and were sent to do his bidding, to speak to nations and convict or wake them up. They were often rebuked and hated, for the nations did not want to hear the bad news. Many prophets tried to run away like Jonah only to be chased and rebuked by God. We listened to all these stories in Sunday School as we colored little pictures of them. They were fairy tales to us. God was never made real to us as children. Prophets were old guys with beards from the Bible, not real living people of history. They would never be in our lifetime, they were of the old time. We were, unfortunately, raised to put God in a box of stories, unwilling to see Him alive and living in our lifetime. 

So I am beginning to see why this book is so hard for me to grasp and understand and believe. Because we are a skeptic nation, raised to see anything supernatural as fiction and impossible. We do not see God's miracles happen in our lives today so we think God is distant, not as a part of our lives as he was in the old and new testaments. But it is written,

 "And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy" (Acts 2:17,18).

So either this man Eric is false and full of lies, or he is truly hearing, seeing, and feeling God's presence and we need to listen and strengthen our faith for the "last days" are near. 

In His Service by Eric Wheeler

My husband was given this book as a gift from someone he has learned to respect in only a short amount of time. He read it several months ago and began to change his views on the world, the way he views the Church, and the way he interprets "living for God." I have seen remarkable changes in him--a full hearted commitment to a God he knows exists and a commitment to the world to show them that this God exists.

The author Eric is a friend of our friend; a friend who will continue to shape and change the way my husband lives and ultimately the way I live as I follow him through this life.

I have picked up this book now. It is about Eric's journey as a modern day prophet so-to-speak and his relationship with God. As a modern Christian who grew up on the Bible, learning the stories and reading the history of God, I will be facing realities of God as a living God and not a God of just the Bible. Already five chapters in, I am in disbelief that this can happen in today's world. That prophets still exist. Our world is skeptical, unwilling to believe anything supernatural. This book challenges that. Eric writes, "the problem is that Jesus is more real to people as a past figure of history than as a present reality." Even to Christians today, that is true. Why?

My faith will be challenged and what I think I believe to be true will be redefined. Wish me luck!