Texas Sunrise is two books in one, Massacre at Goliad and After the Bugles, set at the time of the 1836 Texas Revolution against Santa Anna and the Mexican government. Both books together tell the story of one Texas pioneer, Joshua Buckalew, a young man from Tennessee who comes to Texas to make his fortune and build a life. Joshua and his brother, Thomas, get a land grant from the Mexican government and set to work to build a cabin and plow the land and brand a few mavericks to start building a herd.

The Buckalews have several neighbors, and the book is as much about the relationships of those of Mexican descent and the new “norteamericanos” who practically invade the land, although they are there at the invitation of the Mexican government. Joshua becomes friends with his Hispanic neighbors, even falls in love with a Latina girl, but Thomas has nothing but distaste, even hatred, for the Mexicans. When war comes, the Buckalews and their neighbors, the Hernandez family, must choose sides, whether they want to or not. And those who decide to oppose Santa Anna and his dictatorial rule must put aside their own differences and fight together.

This book would be an excellent read for high school students who are studying or interested in Texas history (some violence and mild profanity are present in all of Kelton’s books). The portrayal of the Texians and the Mexicans who sided with Santa Anna and the Mexicans who fought with the newcomers from the United States is even-handed and fair: there are “good guys” and “bad guys” among all the groups. Only the Native Americans, mostly raiding Comanche, get short shrift, mostly because this book isn’t about them. It’s about those who settled the land in Texas to build farms and ranches, and they generally had only negative encounters with the Comanche and other Native Americans.

I like Elmer Kelton’s westerns better than any other western author I’ve tried. Maybe it’s because Kelton is from San Angelo like me, or maybe it’s because his characters are more rounded and believable than those of Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey or Larry McMurtry. At any rate, if you’re fan of westerns or of Texas history, I recommend Elmer Kelton’s books to your examination. Even if you’re not a western novel fan, The Time It Never Rained and The Day the Cowboys Quit are worth a try anyway. I think you’ll find something satisfying and engaging in Mr. Kelton’s work.

I am re-reading this spiritual autobiography of the well known Christian author, artist, and advocate for the disabled, Joni Eareckson Tada. Here’s what I wrote the first time I read the book:

The book is basically a re-telling of Joni’s life with more emphasis on her childhood and her life after the publication of her first, very successful, attempt at spiritual autobiography, Joni, written about 30 years ago. For those who haven’t been running in evangelical circles for as long as that, Joni Tada is a beautiful Christian author and artist; she is also a quadriplegic, injured in a diving accident when she was still a teenager. Joni writes about growing up as the youngest of four daughters in a home where her father was “bigger than life.” She also remembers horseback riding and playing the piano, travel and discovering family secrets, teenage rebellion and, of course, The Accident. She gives hope to those dealing with depression by telling about her own bouts with depression and anxiety.

Part 1 of The God I Love ends with Joni’s disillusionment with God at the age of eleven when she prayed that God would help her win a big race that she ran—-and He didn’t. Joni writes, “Yet what hurt most was, quite simply, my humiliating and resounding defeat. It made me very disappointed in God. . . . My request was so small, not very demanding. Why couldn’t he have lifted his little finger to push me across that finish line ahead of the others? . . . I ran home, leaving the church behind. As well as something of my childhood.”

I may chuckle a bit at an eleven year old expecting God to favor her in a race, but I’m not sure my expectations are much more in line with God’s purposes than hers. Nor are my questions that much different from Joni’s. Why doesn’t God heal that friend or family member that we prayed for so intently? Even more puzzling, why does He heal this one and not that one? If God can remove a cancerous tumor, why doesn’t He ever replace or regrow an amputated limb? Is either miracle too hard for Almighty God? Are we never supposed to pray for the favors we think we want, or is it O.K. to pray for good grades and test scores, winning games, career advancement, and physical healing, as long as we tack on an “if it is Your will” at the end of the prayer? Can we pray for physical healing but not for mental and spiritual healing (because: free will)? God can override the body gone wrong, but not the soul gone astray? Are we only supposed to pray about daily food, forgiveness, and God’s will be done, as in the Model Prayer, or is God bigger and interested in hearing from us about everything that concerns us? When I pray and talk to God over and over about the worries and heartaches that repeat themselves over and over in my heart and mind, am I just worrying and disguising my worry as prayer? Or does God want me to ask over and over again like the woman in the parable of the importunate widow (Luke 18:1-8). “We ought always to pray and not give up.”

I’m barely more wise or mature in the ways of prayer and the Holy Spirit and understanding God’s ways of speaking and answering than eleven year old Joni was when God disappointed her. I have prayers that God has not yet answered affirmatively or negatively, requests that I believe are much more important and more in line with His will than winning a footrace. I have requests that He has not yet granted despite my repeated and persistent begging. Nevertheless, I will not give up or quit asking, seeking, knocking. For yet, like Joni, “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day.” I commit even my most cherished and desperate prayer requests to Him, trusting Him to do what is right and good and loving in all things.

Originally published at Breakpoint.org, August 29, 2011

In order to review Sarah Dessen’s latest Young Adult romantic adventure, I had to get hold of the copy that my young adult daughters were passing around among themselves. It was going to take a while to get to my turn, so while waiting, I decided to do some background research. I had read one book by Dessen (Along for the Ride) quite a while ago, and thought I’d read a couple more. At the library, I picked up Lock and Key and This Lullaby.

As I read my preliminary research books, and then again when I finally got my hands on What Happened to Goodbye, I felt a strong sense of deja  vu. Dessen changes the names, but her female protagonists have a lot in common. All of those I read about were older teen girls — sixteen or seventeen — in their last years of high school, considering going off to college, and dealing with difficult or dysfunctional mothers and sometimes absent fathers. Each of our heroines is to some extent emotionally closed and guarded, and afraid to love and be loved. Enter the cute, vulnerable, and longsuffering guy who breaks through her shell of self-protection and helps her to risk engaging in a meaningful relationship.

Mclean, the main character in What Happened to Goodbye, is angry with her mother because of the messy divorce that Mclean blames on her mother’s decision to go off with another man. The divorce and subsequent frequent moves with her father, who has a job that involves lots of travel, have given Mclean an identity crisis. Unsure of who she is, or what was real and what was fake about her pre-divorce family of origin, Mclean has been reinventing herself in every town where she and her father move.

But when they come to Lakeview, the fictional setting for all of the books that I read by Dessen, Mclean meets a boy, Dave, who will become an anchor for her free-floating identity, and she makes friends who want to know her as she really is.

So it’s chick lit for the high school set, and my girls devour it. I think Dessen’s books are so popular because they speak to issues and questions that teen girls, in particular, do grapple with and think about: Who am I really? Can I become a new person in a new setting, or am I doomed to make the same mistakes over and over? Is it better to have loved and lost? Is it worth the risk to commit oneself to a romantic relationship in this age of transience and uncertainty? Oh, and how do I deal with the newly realized fact that my parents, mom especially, are imperfect and maybe even seriously messed up?

I like the way Dessen’s books tackle these and other teen questions, with characters who don’t have it all together but who are trying. I don’t like the common assumptions that are perpetuated in the books: that all teens rebel and that all adult dating relationships and most teen ones eventually are consummated in a sexual relationship. There’s nothing explicit about teen sex in What Happened to Goodbye, but the assumption is there. It’s more overt in This Lullaby. In the latter book, promiscuity is rightly shown to be a poor defense mechanism for protecting oneself from true intimacy, but the assumption is still that if you love someone, you will eventually have sex as soon as you both get over all of your issues and hangups. Marriage, of course, is not even a blip on the horizon because, while these teens consider themselves old enough to have sex, they have college to attend, new places to explore, and lives to live before they even think of marriage.

I wish I could recommend some books similar to these but with a more Christian underlying worldview, and also with characters that were as engaging and real as Dessen’s. However, the “Christian” teen romances I’ve read are not nearly in the same league with these books as far as depth of characters and engagement with the real world. I don’t want the characters in Dessen’s books to all behave like sinless saints, a category of people I don’t believe exists this side of heaven, but I do wish there were someone in the novels who could exemplify or articulate a faith-based, or at least traditional, view of male/female and parent/child relationships, and even explore the vicissitudes of love and marriage and growing up from that perspective. Maybe I’m asking too much from a book that purports to be nothing more nor less than the latest in a series of highly acclaimed teen romance novels.

Content warnings: some mildly offensive language and discussion of premarital sexual situations, but no explicit sex or violence.

“Apollo 8 was different from the crewed spaceflights, American and Russian, that had gone before it. Not only was the flight to be launched by the largest, most powerful rocket ever built, but all previous missions had been either suborbital or Earth-orbiting. Now three astronauts—Frank BOrman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders—were to attempt to become the first humans to break the bonds of Earth. Apollo 8 was headed for the moon.”

After I enjoyed the ARC of this beautiful (even in black and white) book, I gave it to Engineer Husband to read. I knew he would enjoy it, too, since he’s actually a retired NASA engineer and interested in all things space program related. Engineer Husband wasn’t there for the Apollo program, but he definitely followed the news of the Apollo missions as a boy/teen. His verdict: well-written, absorbing, and it kept him reading while he was supposed to be going on a “taco run” for our lunch.

Adult Reading:

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes.

Tales of the Alhambra by Washington Irving.

Winter in Madrid by C. J. Sansom.

Message to Malaga by Helen MacInnes.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

Iberia by James Michener.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Abel Sanchez: The History of a Passion by Miguel de Unamuno.

Children’s and Young Adult Fiction:

Shadow of a Bull by Maia Wojciechowska.

I, Juan de Pareja by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino.

Go Saddle the Sea by Joan Aiken. (Sequels are Bridle the Wind and The Teeth of the Gale)

Picture Books:

The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. Illustrated by Robert Lawson.

Sebastian’s Roller Skates by Joan De Deu Prats. Illustrated by Francesc Rovira. Kane/Miller, 2005.

Lola’s Fandango by Anna Witte. Illustrated by Micha Archer. Barefoot Books, 2011.

Look What Came From Spain by Kevin Davis. Franklin Watts, 2003.

Anno’s Spain by Mitsumasa Anno. Philomel. 2004.

Don Quixote and the Windmills by Eric Kimmel. Illustrated by Leonard Fisher. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2004.

Other suggestions of books by Spanish authors or books set in Spain?

I found this orphan post in my drafts folder and thought I’d share it even if it is a bit outdated.

“We all have our ways to survive.” ~Willa of the Wood by Robert Beatty.

“To rush is not necessarily to arrive.” ~Endling: The Last by Katherine Applegate.

“Anything in the world is possible—by will and by luck, with a moist carrot, a wet nose, and a slice of mad courage.” ~The Royal Rabbits of London by Santa and Simon Montefiore.

“We save ourselves by saving others.” ~Sweep: The Story of a Girl and her Monster by Jonathan Auxier.

“The smaller something is, the more it needs protection.” ~The Boy, the Boat, and the Beast by Samantha M. Clark.

“Ruling does not mean dominating. It means making difficult decisions. It means working hard, all the time, late into the night. It means listening . . . It’s the opposite of dominating, really.” ~The Lost Books: The Scroll of Kings by Sarah Prineas.

“When you see others in need, you help them, even if it means a risk to yourself.” ~Evangeline of the Bayou by Jan Eldredge.

“Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible.”

Lord Salisbury

This epigram summarizes at least one large part of my political philosophy. I believe in what is often called limited government because I have seen that much of what governments end up doing is “for the worse”, and it is in our interest that government be as limited as possible. Of course, I am not an anarchist. Government, the federal government in particular, has a role and a responsibility to be sure: “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” And in our large country the in itself becomes a rather large role and responsibility. But please, let’s have the federal government, as well as the state governments, stay out of medicine, out of education, out of regulating the internet, and out of as much as possible in a free but ordered society. I’m not exactly a libertarian, but I do lean in that direction.

As we say in Texas, where we only allow the legislature to meet every two years for 140 days:

“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”

~Gideon J. Tucker

I think this generation of young adults NEED milestones and celebrations and ceremonies and markers, but they don’t know it. Some of my children have not wanted to celebrate their graduation perhaps because they feel uneasy about ceremony and public announcements in general? And this uneasiness has carried over into other things. I have a daughter who is essentially “married” (but not) because she can’t wrap her head around the actual wedding. I know others who are committed to Christ but refuse to be baptized because it would require a public event within the context of the church community.

I don’t have all my thoughts in order about this, but I see this in so many areas: a reluctance to attend weddings and funerals and baby showers and other markers, a social anxiety that afflicts many young people I know, a reluctance to have a graduation ceremony or a wedding or baptism or whatever. I’m not talking about the expense but rather the commitment and vulnerability that is required to announce a milestone or achievement or commitment in one’s life and invite others to celebrate it with you. The celebration of definite commitments and events is important and lacking in people who just want to drift into adulthood or marriage or even Christian commitment. When we drift into these periods and chapters and allegiances in our lives, we more easily drift out as well.

Young Man From the Piedmont: The Youth of Thomas Jefferson by Leonard Wibberley.

Wibberley places these words in the mouth of George Wythe, famous Virginia lawyer and Jefferson’s teacher and mentor:

“When a lawyer takes a case into court, Tom, he performs a service by demonstrating to the public the workings of the law to which they have given their sanction. If the law is a bad and an unjust law, then the lawyer brings this forcibly to the attention of the public by demanding that the law be enforced. And so the lawyers may stir the people to change bad laws by which the courts are bound. But the changing of laws is the province of the people through their elected representatives. If the courts could change laws at will, then courts would soon become tyrannical and no man would be safe in his person or his property.”

Earlier in the book Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry are discussing the court’s responsibility in regard to law and justice;

TJ: “But the court must uphold the law. That is the function of a court . . .”

PH: “You’re wrong, Tom. The function of a court is to see that justice is done. Courts are courts of justice, and when I get before that jury I’ll argue justice and the devil with the law and all the precedents.”

Do you agree with Jefferson and Wythe that courts must uphold the law and thereby expose those laws that are truly bad in order that the legislature may fix or annul or repeal those bad laws? Or are the courts meant to dispense justice no matter what the letter of the law may say?