Into the Book

4

Death by Living - N.D. Wilson

Recommended
In the opening pages of Death by Living, N.D. Wilson warns us that “for me, meditation is a noisy, noisy business. There’s a chance of hard cider, and a likelihood of shouting.”

Yeah. I knew I liked this guy.

Pass the cider, my brothers, and listen up. Life is a story, but between the knowing and the living lies a chasm that has swallowed many a man whole. “My life is a story,” says the latte-swigging hipster, and he doesn’t understand how right he really is. Do you? Do I? Or do we merely pass this idea around “like a cigarette between furtive fourteen-year-olds, the smoke puffing in and out like empty speech”?

Somewhere there is a disconnect – God help us, such a disconnect – and Wilson is ready with the much-needed rebuke: "If you think it, live it. If you don’t live it, you don’t really think it. You are not what you think (or what you think you think). You are not what you say you are. You are what you do.”

So we say it again: Life is a story. Yes. We know this. Now let us live like we know it.

The story spins on – every day, every hour, every minute. We can clutch, we can grab, we can try to horde the moments that slip through our fingers like water; or we can open our hands and give, give till there is nothing left, let ourselves be poured out by others and for others. Our days on this mortal coil are numbered. The only question is: will we live fully and deeply, the way God intended us to live, or will we not?

Drink your wine. Laugh from your gut. Burden your moments with thankfulness. Be as empty as you can be when that clock winds down. Spend your life. And if time is a river, may you leave a wake.

In trying to review a book as beautiful and as brilliant as this, I have a deathly fear of saying the wrong thing; of failing to get even a smidgen of the book’s wonder across to you fairly; of sounding like a nut who can’t be taken too bloody seriously. Therefore: if what I’ve written moves you in any way to go out and buy this book, I will feel that I’ve succeeded.

If not, forget this review completely.

And buy the book anyway.

Oh, one more thing. Eric Metaxes has said that N.D. Wilson reminds him of a young Chesterton. Higher or more accurate praise could hardly be given, I think. And that brings me to what I love best in Wilson’s writing: the joy. His prose is saturated with it, just like Chesterton’s. This joy isn’t the naive optimism of a happiness guru, but the deep, glorious, soul-bursting exultation that finds its roots in the cry of Job: I know that my Redeemer liveth. This is the joy that comes from knowing the Storyteller. This is the joy that comes from knowing how the Story ends.

- Corey P.
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Corey P. began reviewing books for Into the Book in July of 2011. Corey is first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ, and this affects everything which he does. His favorite reads are history and Reformed Theology.

4 comments:

  1. I'm ready to scream with how much I need to read this book. I've heard a kazillion good reviews and ravings about it. Apparently I have to read Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl first though. Would you agree?

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    Replies
    1. I don't think it matters much if you read them in reverse order. Just know that Notes is every bit as amazing, so you'll want to pick it up, too. :)

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  2. I would disagree (sure, didn't review this, but. .. ). I read them in reverse order. It's like more of the same, in the best possible way. :D

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  3. Alright, thanks guys. These are definitely at the top of my wishlist at the moment, so I'll be getting my hands on them very soon. :D

    ReplyDelete

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