Holy Disruptor: Shattering the Shiny Facade by Getting Louder with the Truth

I never watched this show, but I have had directees who were related to the IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles) and had terrible experiences. I found her memoir compelling. I had read her cousin Jill's too. I believe that IBLP is a cult. It is not the way of Jesus. 

 The part where she confronts her cousin Josh about molesting four of his sisters and a babysitter, and the sick smile on his face. That says it all. 

You GO Amy!

Heart Speak: A Visual Interpretation of Let Your Life Speak

This book was recommended to me in late 2024, but I finally got around to reading it in 2026.

I love Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak, and this book captures all the essential points in the book. 

I highly recommend it. One of my spiritual direction trainers gives it to high school students as a graduation gift. Great idea! 

Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness

I have such mixed feelings about this book. I have spent many summers in the Psalms. I thought I would try this version that my first spiritual director, Sister Joan, would use to open our sessions. I have often used Psalm 23 in my sessions with people. It has opened such wonderful conversations with my directees.

But, some of the Psalms are so off base. So far removed from what the psalm is actually saying. It is as if she had a bee in her bonnet about some issue, and she wanted to put it into the psalm.

Also, she had trouble saying that God is KING. She would use another word that really did not deliver what the psalmist was saying. 

What is wrong with saying God is KING? 

Yet, there are some paraphrased parts that are absolutely beautiful. 

I don't think I can recommend this book, but I am glad that I went through the whole thing to know this. 

The Guy You Loved to Hate

I never watched this guy on the show that made him famous (the name of that show escapes me right now), but I was intrigued as I saw him interviewed on a podcast when he was running for mayor of Los Angelas. I grew up 13 miles south of where he grew up. So, I was interested in his life story. I found it fascinating! 

You Better Believe I'm Gonna Talk About It

This was interesting for me. I remember her from Dancing with the Stars from many years ago. I had never heard of her, and I remember her sort of rubbing me the wrong way. She has her truth. She sticks to it even though it can be pretty misguided being that she lives in the Hollywood bubble. I found it entertaining. 

The Last Battle

Copilot comes to the rescue again. I will say that I was so much more attuned to what was happening in the Narnia books spiritually this time, but I didn't jot all of them down. I am relying on Copilot. It knows I am a spiritual director. So, it tailors the answers to that. 

Here are the most spiritually rich, direction-ready quotes from The Last Battle, drawn from authoritative sources and curated for contemplative use. These are the passages that speak most deeply to themes of homecoming, courage, discernment, longing, and the nature of true reality.

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🌿 Homecoming, Heaven, and the “Real Country”

• “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here… Come further up, come further in!”
  A jubilant declaration of ultimate belonging and spiritual arrival. [^1]
  Why it matters: Ideal for exploring desire, eschatological hope, and the soul’s orientation toward its true home.

• “All their life in this world… had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story… which goes on forever… and every chapter is better than the one before.”
  A vision of eternity as unfolding intimacy and joy. [^1]
  Why it matters: Helps directees reframe endings, grief, and transition as thresholds into deeper reality.

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🦁 Trust, Courage, and Divine Holding

• “But courage, child: we are all between the paws of the true Aslan.”
  A tender assurance of divine protection and presence. [^1]
  Why it matters: Beautiful for sessions involving fear, uncertainty, or surrender.

• “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”
  A metaphor for death as awakening. [^1]
  Why it matters: Supports conversations about mortality, hope, and spiritual awakening.

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🔥 Discernment, Deception, and Inner Freedom

• “They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their minds… so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”
  A piercing insight into self-made spiritual prisons. [^1]
  Why it matters: Useful for exploring resistance, mistrust, and the ways fear constricts spiritual openness.

• “He is not a tame lion.”
  A reminder of divine wildness and sovereignty. [^2]
  Why it matters: Helps directees examine expectations of God, control, and the mystery of divine action.

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🌱 Seeking, Desire, and the Nature of True Devotion

• “Beloved… unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”
  Emeth’s encounter with Aslan. [^1]
  Why it matters: A profound text for exploring desire, vocation, and the sincerity of the seeker’s heart.

• “My happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound… that he called me Beloved.”
  Emeth’s astonishment at divine acceptance. [^1]
  Why it matters: Supports conversations about grace, identity, and being seen by God.

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🧭 Justice, Surrender, and Holy Fear

• “How should we know what he would do? We, who are murderers… Do you think I care if Aslan dooms me to death? That would be nothing… Would it not be better to be dead than to have this horrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like the Aslan we have believed in?”
  Tirian’s anguished honesty. [^3]
  Why it matters: A raw text for exploring guilt, repentance, and the fear of divine abandonment.

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✨ If you’d like next

I can shape these into a printable reflection sheet, curate quotes by spiritual theme (grief, hope, discernment, calling), or create guided journaling prompts for use with directees.

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References (3)

[^1]: The Last Battle Quotes by C.S. Lewis. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1059917-the-last-battle

[^2]: Best Quotes Of The Last Battle With Page Numbers By C.S. Lewis. https://www.bookey.app/book/the-last-battle/quote

[^3]: Last Battle Quotes (4 quotes). https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/last-battle

P.S. I found this interesting that one of my Facebook friends posted an opinion piece on Susan's fate. 

Jeremy Rios

July 23 at 6:15 PM ·

70 years ago, in 1956, C.S. Lewis published “The Last Battle,” the final children’s novel set in his fictional world of Narnia. One element from that book has troubled readers ever since: Susan.

If you don’t know, Susan is one of the four Pevensie children, who first enter Narnia through a magical wardrobe in a country estate where they are temporarily housed to escape the dangers of the Blitz. Susan is the oldest daughter and the second oldest child in the family. She returns to Narnia in the second book, “Prince Caspian,” and features as a character in the fifth book (set in the past) called “The Horse and His Boy.”

But, in the final instalment, when nearly every character returns to a renewed Narnia during and after what will be Narnia’s last battle, Susan is notably absent. When asked where she is, the children reply that Susan “is no longer a friend of Narnia.” And we learn that not only does she now dismiss their stories as fabulous fantasies, she has become more and more interested in things like “nylons and lipstick.” In other words, Susan has chosen the world, and that choice has left her outside of Narnia at the end. It is quite a stark warning, especially within the context of a children’s story.

Readers, however, were and are bothered. A frustrated Neil Gaiman wrote a book about Susan’s perspective. J.K. Rowling took issue with what she perceived as the implicit sexism of Lewis’s comments on Susan—as if the problem was Susan’s discovery of sexuality. Others, like Francis Spufford, inclined to fan-fiction, attempting various corrective re-writes to “fix” the problem by including Susan and remedying Lewis’s perceived mistakes.

I don’t think Lewis made a mistake. Moreover, I think that people’s unwillingness to address the hard news of Susan say a lot more about them than it does about Susan.

Let’s explore this. Taken on its own, the closing narrative of Susan’s self-distancing from Narnia may feel like a throwaway. In other words, it can seem as if Lewis wanted to teach a lesson, picked on the girl, and then picked the most easy way to get the girl out of both the world of imagination and—with it—of salvation. So he picks sex, makes Susan boy-crazy, and, in a flash, she’s a Narnia-apostate. This reading is odd, because to make it work we have to imagine that Lewis, were he writing today, would be an advocate for what is sometimes called “purity culture.” But Lewis doesn’t think sex is bad. Far from it, the sixth novel in the Narnia series “The Magician’s Nephew,” is anchored on romantic love and its corruption.

“Wait a minute,” I hear you say, “How can ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ be about romantic love?” This will take a moment, but it’s worth recounting. One of the things we know now (thanks especially to the groundbreaking scholarship of Michael Ward in his book “Planet Narnia”) is that Lewis orchestrated and designed the seven Narnia books around the seven medieval planets. The clearest example, in case this is news to you, is found in “The Voyage of the ‘Dawn Treader’” which is the Narnia book designed around Sol, the sun (which was, in medieval thinking, a planet). The whole journey takes place as the ship moves toward the sun, images of gold are replete throughout the book, and several dragons are killed (or un-dragoned) throughout the book—and this is because Apollo, god of the sun, is regarded as a dragon-slayer.

Each book has an underlying theme like this, and, when we come to “The Magician’s Nephew,” the governing planet is Venus, planet and goddess of love. Lewis shows in the novel a contrast between a figure he calls “Venus Infernal”—Jadis, Queen of Charn, is referred to as a “Dem Fine Woman”—and a Venus Eternal, the right love of Digory for his mother, the creative love of Aslan, and a love that, in the plot, is uniquely manifest by not eating fruit without permission. Important as a theme throughout all of Lewis’s work is an affirmation of the goodness of everything God has made. Therefore, Lewis doesn’t hate sex, but he is keenly aware of how our physical desires can lead us astray.

Why do I go through all of this? Because it is highly unlikely that Lewis’s treatment of Susan at the end is an afterthought. If Lewis orchestrated his books this carefully, we should presume that he employed a similar measure of care in how he describes the end of one of his significant characters. Lewis is not dismissing Susan in a casual way because of “sex.” When we start to look at Susan in this more robust way, a few things emerge.

First, of all the children who travel through Narnia, Susan is the only one who does not have a significant personal encounter with Aslan. Recall the events with me: Edmund is going to lose his life, and Aslan gives his own life for Edmund. Afterwards, they have a conversation—that no one hears—and from that point Edmund is transformed. Lucy, most sensitive of the Pevensie children, is almost always first to see him, hear him, and respond to him. Peter, in his enthronement must exercise leadership—he is Aslan’s agent in a way that none of the other children are (especially in “Prince Caspian”). Eustace is actually physically un-dragoned by the claws of Aslan! Jill Pole has her terrifying encounter with the Lion by the brook in Aslan’s country, and Digory comes face to face with the Lion’s tears at the dawn of Narnia.

But Susan has no such life-changing encounter. She is one of the four, and she is a witness, and she has adventures, but it very much looks like she goes through Narnia unchanged.

Second, Susan’s beauty and potential for vanity are seeded throughout the books she features in. Suitors pursue her at the end of the first book (LWW), and a major plot point of “The Horse and His Boy” is Rabadash’s desire to take Susan as his queen, against her will. Far from being an afterthought, Susan’s beauty—and its dangers—have always been a part of her character.

Third, and finally, recall that in the second Narnia book, “Prince Caspian,” the children return to Narnia and a great deal of time has passed there—so much time, in fact, that the landscape has changed and they struggle to recognize where they are. While journeying toward their destination, one by one the Pevensie children begin to see Aslan. Lucy—again, the most sensitive!—sees him first, but the others disbelieve. Edmund, seeking to make amends for his previous behaviour towards Lucy, chooses to trust her and is rewarded by seeing Aslan second. After a time, finally, Peter also sees Aslan. Who sees him last? It is Susan, and this suggests that the seeds of a kind of resistance to the transformative magic of Narnia are already in place, embedded in her character.

Far from being a problem, the absence of Susan at the conclusion of Narnia’s stories provides us with two pieces of terrifying instruction. And the lessons look like this:

1) You can travel through Narnia and not be changed by it. You can live adjacent to profound transformation, and not be transformed yourself. You can witness miracles and not believe.

This is very sobering, but necessary for us to hear. It is similar to that old preacher’s phrase that “Sitting in church no more makes you a Christian than sitting in your garage makes you a car.” Proximity to transformation is not in itself any guarantee for personal transformation. There is always something more that is required. In this, I think of the phrase that I sometimes have heard people say: “If only God would show me a miracle, then I would believe.” But I think the message of Susan is that you can see all the miracles in the world and still not believe.

2) You really can choose the world. A lot of people are upset by the idea of exclusion, that God might shut people out from His Kingdom. But the truth of the matter is that God gives us freedom to choose not-God. We can choose the world. We can choose our own way. And the truly terrifying part is that He lets us make that choice. Lewis puts this explicitly in his book “The Great Divorce,” where George MacDonald, his guide to the lands between, says these words, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.” Susan, therefore, is vivid illustration of a sobering point that runs throughout Lewis’s books and theology.

During a typhoid epidemic in London, John Donne was himself sick and bedridden, forced to listen repeatedly to the funeral bells that rang from the church. Responding to the queries of people wondering who had died, he wrote these words: “Send not to ask for whom the bell tolls/it tolls for thee.” His message was pastoral: do not focus your curiosity on the death of others, take care of your own soul. Do not fixate on the news, look to your own salvation. Something similar can be said of Susan’s final state—do not fixate on Susan, but look to yourself. Have I journeyed in the Kingdom without entering it? Have I chosen the world over the King?

The Magician's Nephew

More Narnia. I reviewed it ten years ago HERE. 

Here are some quotes that are significant from my Copilot search:

🌿 Awakening, Identity & Divine Invitation

• “Awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters.”
  A summons into consciousness and vocation — an invitation to live awake and aligned with one’s created nature. [^1]

• “A voice had begun to sing… the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.”
  Creation as music: a reminder that beauty can be a doorway into the sacred. [^1]

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🦁 Compassion, Grief & Divine Nearness

• “My son, my son… I know. Grief is great.”
  Aslan’s tears reveal a God who does not bypass suffering but enters it with us. [^1]

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🌱 Freedom, Stewardship & Sacred Responsibility

• “Creatures, I give you yourselves… I give you the stars and I give you myself.”
  A profound statement of gifted identity, autonomy, and responsibility — ideal for exploring agency and calling. [^2]

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🔥 Temptation, Moral Clarity & Inner Posture

• “Oh, Adam’s sons, how cleverly you defend yourselves against all that might do you good!”
  A piercing observation about resistance to grace and self-protection. [^1]

• “No great wisdom can be reached without sacrifice.”
  A reminder that transformation has a cost — helpful in discernment conversations. [^3]

• “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing… and what sort of person you are.”
  A contemplative insight into perception, bias, and spiritual posture. [^1]

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🧭 Choice, Desire & the Inner Life

• “Make your choice, adventurous Stranger… Strike the bell and bide the danger.”
  A poetic framing of temptation, curiosity, and the cost of choices. [^1]

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References (3)

[^1]: The Magician’s Nephew Quotes by C.S. Lewis. https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1031537-the-magician-s-nephew

[^2]: The Magician's Nephew Quotes - eNotes.com. https://www.enotes.com/topics/magicians-nephew/quotes

[^3]: Best Quotes Of The Magician's Nephew With Page Numbers By C.S. Lewis. https://www.bookey.app/book/the-magician's-nephew/quote

The Horse and His Boy

More Narnia! I zoomed through this while in the C.S. Lewis room at the Hotel Sylvia (I think I read three Narnia books there!) 

Here is a picture of me reading on our patio. I have a similar picture from 15-20 years ago on the patio of the room right next to it. I cannot find it though, but I might just go and look for it and do a comparison.

Loved this little Narnia side story!

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage

I read this because I saw Oprah interview her, and then I was on vacation with a woman who had read it and said, "This is what happened in my marriage!"  I did see one podcaster rip it to shreds because she is this rich woman who is crying a river about the break up of her marriage, but heartbreak has no net worth attached to it. 

I found it very compelling. I couldn't put it down. 

Cradled in the Arms of Compassion: A Spiritual Journey from Trauma to Recovery

Read May 10-July 17 

I am a fast reader, but this one was so painful to get through. It is the father of Christian Internal Family Systems (I took a seminar from him a few months). I bought this thinking that it was his book about that subject only to discover that it is his in-depth journal from the trauma of sexual abuse to recovery. It is raw and emotional, and there was times where I felt physically ill reading it. That is why it took so long to get through it. 

It is a worthwhile read to understand what those who go through childhood sexual abuse endure. I wanted to slap his mother. Even when she "realized" that what she had done was wrong (duh!), she was so self-centered! I admire this man for continuing to even be in the same room with her. 

I was most touched by his time at the Our Lady of the Redwoods Trappist Retreat Center. 

This book is NOT for everyone. I was sexually abused, but it was a one-time incident (with mind games played on me for year since he was a neighbor across the street for my whole childhood), and I had the boundaries to know that I needed to steer clear of him from then on out (although he was constantly coming over to our house and visiting with my dad who had no idea of what he had done because I never knew to tell him). There was enough damage from that encounter. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for this author. 

The book has very strong language. It is very graphic.

I did love that part of his healing came from doing the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius as this is what I have facilitated every year with individuals and groups since 2019. I think that the Exercises were really significant in my continued healing. Once I got to that part of the book, I knew there was a reason why I mistakenly bought it. 

This was a LOONG book. I am glad I finally finished it. 

The Silver Chair

Puddleglum is my favorite character in all of Narnia. In The Silver Chair, Puddleglum the Marshwiggle confronts the Lady of the Green Kirtle, who has enchanted the heroes to make them doubt the existence of Narnia, the sun, and Aslan. After breaking the spell by stamping on the fire, Puddleglum limps back and delivers his iconic speech:

"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things—trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."

I loved reading it this time because I was at the Hotel Sylvia in the C.S. Lewis Room when I read it! 

 

The Genesis of Relationship

You can see the previous post where I talk about the Life with God series with Grafted Life. This is the first book and starts out in Genesis. The whole purpose is to get people to think relationally about God. It is about life with God. 

It is written by recovering evangelicals who have been raised in the church and didn't really clue in about the relationship piece and life with God. They went to a spiritual formation program in seminary, and their eyes were opened. So this is written to be a bridge to understanding for people who have been raised this way. 

I often feel like a fish out of water because I was not raised in the church. When I went through the training, I was in the minority as they talked of their upbringing. There were a couple of us, but I always know that I am different, and it is a cross-cultural experience for me. 

So with that, it is a bridge study with podcast sermons to accompany each lesson (until you get to Book 5: Daily Abiding with Jesus and a deep dive into the book of John). They have taken out the contemplative language, and I am assuming this is because words like lectio divina and imaginative contemplation would be unsavory for your mainline evangelical. I get that. That is what the Navigators did with me. They taught me a lot of this stuff, but they wouldn't call it by the Catholic name 30+ years ago. 

I feel like this can fit in a church. I am not necessarily called to the churched person. So, I am not sure I would use this. People apply to go through The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, and that is where I am called. 

I do think this study is biblically very sound and a good bridge. I also think if you had your whole church go through it, it would establish a DNA with everyone that would lead to better relationships. I would love to interview people who established it in their church. I do know a pastor who did. He was trained to be a spiritual director when I was an intern trainer. So I might talk to him. 

Life with God: A Journey of Relationship - Training and Resources

This is the training manual for the Life with God series put out by Grafted Life.  It was a five-week training. I might introduce this to our discipleship pastor. I am not sure I would lead a group since I am pretty locked in a love leading Spiritual Exercises in Everyday Life groups. It is interesting that many of the Scriptures in this series overlap with the Scriptures in the Exercises. It starts out with God's love, and that is how Ignatius starts out. This training manual gives a lot of suggestions for how to lead a small group. If you have never done that, it would be really helpful for people. This is a picture of the book, but you cannot order the book from a retailer and have to order it through a leader who has been trained to lead this series. 

Friday Freewrite Fifteen

I am setting it for fifteen, and here I go. I love Fridays. I decided not to teach on this day, and I do mostly paperwork and tie up loose ends. Today, I need to clean up my Type Four Enneagram materials and send it to my directee. I need to read more of Spiritual Direction: A Practical Introduction by Pickering so I can get it ready for Module 2 of the spiritual direction training. I need to put the finishing touches on my manual by adding my new Examen and discernment visual images to my manual and add about being able to do sticky notes for the Blessed History Timelines that the people in the new RAD SEEL will be going through this summer. I want to give them plenty of time to do that. They will refer to it as they go through the first weeks of the Exercises and then when they look at Sin Patterns (that sounds so bad, but it is really quite freeing in every way). 

So those are the main things I want to do work-wise, but I also want to take a morning walk, clean up the house so that it is ready for our impromptu Fourth of July party and all that. I think it is just Katherine and John and our kids so far. So that will be great. 

I also want to finish Narnia, and I have about 1 1/2 of reading listening. So I will do that after my freewrite. 

I think today I will get back on the wagon of eating since tomorrow will be a treat day. Then, I will go from July 4th to our anniversary on July 21 with logging and eating in moderation. Then we start our vacation. I think that we will go away as a family. I think George forgot that that will be our vacation time as a family. So, I don't think he can go fishing with M and J. That's OK though. 

I need to call the Trappist Monastery about going to them.

Oh, I will also go through the CRFs that are in the Student Participation folder. That will be really good. 

I would like to have our last CRFs be the Grocery List of the directees. Noticing what gives you life in direction and what does not give you life. It will be really good. 

I think that I need to hear from R in order to send everything out to the participants in the SEEL. 

I have work to do, but it is not overwhelming in any way. I will listen to Narnia when I go on my walk. That will be great. Maybe I will even do Glen Eden today. I can do hills.

Oh, I also have to do the Pilates with the Magic Circle. I keep putting it off. 

Oh, I also would like to finish the Life with God Lesson 5 assignments. I think this has added things to my plate. I think I will NOT take any continuing education or contract out my supervision services with anything that runs through the summer again. That would be really nice to not have ANYTHING extra. The Life with God training has not been a lot extra, but it is enough that I would like to be freer to go and do, especially since George is retired now.

I can feel the sun coming up and on my back. So I think I will go right after I am done with this freewrite. I am going to transfer it over to Penzu too. Maybe later I will write my review of The Last Battle in the Narnia series and also my review of the Life with God Resources manual later on today. 

Oh, look at that, I have 1 minute left on my timer. I thought it has been about 15 minutes. I love it. 

I'll finish up my second cuppa' and go out in the morning light. Such a beautiful day today. And it is great! 

So, all I have is walk, read, write, and work. That is easy-peasy.

Oh, I might watch some basketball later on today too!

 

Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith

I read this three years ago. You can read my review HERE. I had considered putting it in my curriculum then, and this reading was for the training that starts in September. I think it is going to be a great fit!

It was different to read it from the perspective of leading a discussion with directors in training. 

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

Poor Eustace! This is such a great story of transformation.

It was read by Derek Jacobi. 

Prince Caspian

More joy rereading this great series. I am listening to each book read by incredible British actors. This one was read by Lynn Redgrave. She is amazing!

King of Kings - The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion, and Catastrophic Miscalculation

Wow! I learned so much from this book. I had it on hold BEFORE the US started bombing Iran. By the time I go it, the conflict had started, and this book was a hot commodity. 

I was in college when the "King of Kings" fell. This book gave me context for the fall.

This book makes Carter and his administration look like fools. Everyone was asleep to what was brewing. 

I will say that there is a review on Goodreads by an Iranian woman, Helga Martiros, who is very critical of the book:

Did Not Finish

October 8, 2025

I'm going to regret this review, but here goes:
I am furious at this book and can’t go on reading it. It’s a DNF after reading approximately 200 pages.
This book may be interesting for a non-Iranian, but for me who was born and raised in Iran and knows the events and their 'when and why and who and where', this book was not ‘it’!

First off, when writing about a historical event, do some research about the country, her history, culture, customs and psychology of the people of the country you're writing about.

For example, you should know that in Iran we have had arbitrary rule for ages. Meaning, from the start, in Persia there had been kings and those kings had been revered and obeyed like gods. The Shah wasn’t even comparable to your Carter. You are comparing a president with a king? Really?
He was the king with certain duties and very specific understanding of how to behave as a king, inheriting what he had been taught. Meaning, when someone was in his presence, that someone should be standing until invited to be seated.
The same goes for every royal country. There are etiquettes to be observed.
I’m sure you couldn’t just barge in the Oval Office and high-five Trump and sit your ass down without leave? So, the criticisms directed at Shah about his behavior is uncalled for. By the way, just so you know, Shah was an extremely introvert person, hence his not mingling. Jesus Christ!

Secondly, that’s Shahbanu Farah to you, not just Farah, like you’re talking about a pet puppy. And, you are still at it, criticizing her for caring for her country?? She does charity work and your tone implies that she’s doing it for show? Shah crowns her as Queen, not because of his arrogance, but because he wants her to be an example for the downtrodden women of Iran, to show them that 'yes, they can too! Iran had never seen a woman become a queen until then. The wives of the kings used to be confined in the harems. But I digress...

Thirdly, don’t rely on some minister’s diary entries. You are basing your opinion of Shah and what went on behind closed doors using a third person’s perspective who for all we know wrote a bunch of lies in his diary to suit his narrative. And at the same time you are bashing the Queen’s own memoir, telling us without shame that she lied or exaggerated?

Right at the beginning you ask us ‘why didn’t the US support Shah and prevent his downfall. Well if you don’t know why, then you have no business writing a 700 page book.
But I will tell you why your country and your revered Carter didn’t back Shah. It was because Shah didn’t want to give free oil and concessions to other countries anymore. Shah was striving to become independent. That's why. He had to go, so another puppet regime would do whatever your country demanded.
And Shah went, because if he stayed, there would have been bloodshed and he didn’t want that.
You portray Shah as some kind of a ninny who didn’t know shit. Shah knew shit, the only thing he did wrong was trusting the wrong people. He was a dreamer, a patriot and an idealist and those traits cost him his country.

An excerpt to show what kind of a history book this is. Notice the “In all likelihood… probably…just as probable…” ?

"In all likelihood, that morning’s meeting of the two men followed the same general pattern as the hundreds that had preceded it. The shah had probably been reading from one of the stacks of papers on his desk with his oversized, black-rimmed bifocals when Alam entered. It’s just as probable that he neither spoke nor looked up as his minister approached, but instead absently raised his right hand from the desk to let it hover in the air. Drawing up at the shah’s side, Alam would have executed a deep bow, then taken the proffered hand and, while kissing it, whispered a prayer for the continued health and safety of the man known as the King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, Shadow of God on Earth. This incantation complete, Alam would have then rounded the desk, careful not to show his back to the monarch while doing so, to stand on its opposite side. Because their meeting that April morning was scheduled to be brief, perhaps a mere twenty minutes, the court minister probably remained standing for the duration."

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Here is my review from ten years ago. 

My oldest son is rereading these, and we relived a memory of our kids hearing Narnia for the first time as kids. It inspired me to reread the whole series this summer.

The part that stood out to me was the reactions of the four children when they heard about Aslan for the first time. Here is a summary:

When the children first hear the name Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, they do not yet know who he is, but the mere mention of his name instantly evokes strong, distinct feelings in each of them LitCharts.
According to the text, the Beaver says, “They say Aslan is on the move—perhaps has already landed.” At that moment, each child feels something “jump in its inside” — a sudden, powerful sensation LitCharts. Specifically:
 

• Edmund feels a sensation of mysterious horror — a mix of fear and unease, possibly because he is already suspicious of the White Witch and wary of danger eNotes.com+1.

 

• Peter feels suddenly brave and adventurous — his reaction shows courage and a readiness to face whatever comes next eNotes.com+1.

 

• Susan feels as if some delicious smell or delightful strain of music had just floated by her — a sense of beauty, delight, and something pleasant and uplifting eNotes.com+1.

 

• Lucy gets the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of summer — a sense of warmth, hope, and the joy of a new, better time eNotes.com+1.

 
These reactions show that Aslan’s name carries deep symbolic weight — it can inspire fear, courage, beauty, and hope — even before the children understand his identity or role. Lewis uses these contrasting responses to hint at the complex nature of Aslan: a powerful, good king whose presence can stir both awe and apprehension in those who hear his name.
 

How do you feel when you hear the name of Jesus?

Weeks after reading this, we went to the C.S. Lewis room at the Hotel Sylvia. Here are some pictures from the room that go along with this particular book in the series:

Do You Love Me? Exploring Our Relationships with God and Others

This is one of the books in my Life with God leader training with Grafted Life. The Scripture is foundational for understanding the relational nature of God. I would love to see it be more experiential with God rather than a lot of teaching. 

The 4 Habits of Joy-Filled Marriages

This was a follow up of my Escaping Enemy Mode book. Now, we are going to have a four-week study of it with our friends. It is about applying brain science to your marriage!