Best Books of 2021: Q2

Hello! It’s been awhile (ok more than awhile… 6 months?). A friend asked me why I didn’t post last quarter. Well, 3 reasons:

1. I completed 6 books and while some were not bad, I didn’t think any of them impacted me deeply enough to feel that I HAD to talk about it here;
2. Tbh I initially wanted to mention one of Ravi Zacharias’ book, but after the scandal, I just felt that I couldn’t in good conscience recommend it anymore (a real pity because while the message is true, the man is false; and while I suppose some can distinguish the two, I don’t think most people are able to do so);
3. It was a season of transition for me (new job, new relationship), and life was just too hectic to carve out the time needed to write on a public platform.

BUT because I still want to keep this going, AND because there are still good books out there waiting to be read, I’m back! 🙂 So without further ado, here are some books I’d completed and would recommend:

1. Eating Chilli Crab in the Anthropocene, edited by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson
2. The Way of the Heart, by Henri Nouwen
3. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, by Eugene Peterson
   

Eye-catching cover, isn’t it? One that gives you a snapshot of the myriad of topics covered, embedded within the Age of Man (i.e. the Anthropocene). Reading this book was like going back in time, taking GE2221 Nature & Society again – one of my favourite modules in uni!

As Schneider-Mayerson articulates in the introduction, everything is environmental. The environment is not something out there – external, distant, beautiful, boring, seemingly irrelevant in our day to day lives – but it is intrinsically connected to what we eat, consume, and build in both our lives and our nation.

Before I dive deeper into some of the chapters I really enjoyed, I must say that this book left me really impressed. Not just by the breadth of issues covered, or the depth of analysis, but also the youth of the writers – all the authors in the book are born between 1993-1998! :O

Now on to my favourite chapters in this book:

1) Eating Chilli Crab in the Anthropocene: Nature, Culture and Care, by Neo Xiaoyun

Using the Scylla serrata (Giant Mud Crab), we are taken on a ride, exploring everything from:

• how it ends up on our plate (fun fact – 6000 crabs are imported to SG every day, sourced from nearby Southeast Asian countries to far-flung places like the east coast of Africa!);
• how it was locally harvested by the Orang Laut (indigenous sea people of Singapore);
• the role of food in heritage construction (how in lauding chilli crab as Singapore’s national dish, we forget the longer history of the crab, and lose a broader regional and global history of which we are part of).

Singapore is a nation of food lovers, and while the community of nature lovers is growing, it is still very much a niche interest group. As Xiaoyun points out,

Our general lack of interest in nonhuman animals apart from their utilitarian functions (i.e. deliciousness) symbolises a broader disregard for the natural world, a disregard incongruent with our ability to influence nature on an epic scale. 

As our voracious appetite for crabs outpace their biological development and reproductive cycle, are we able to reimagine and develop a relationship that is more conducive to human and nonhuman flourishing? To perceive a wider circle of care, beyond our immediate family and friends? There are no easy answers, but this chapter offers much food for thought.

2) Lovable Lutrines: Curated Nature and Environmental Migrants in the Ottercity, by Heeeun Monica Kim

I loved the next chapter as well, which highlights the juxtaposition of the treatment charismatic otters get in this urban city, as compared to the attention and efforts received by numerous less sexy (yet more threatened) species such as the Sunda pangolin, Sambal deer, and leopard cat (all of which have been roadkill along Mandai Road).

Once almost wiped out of Singapore’s habitats due to pollution and lack of suitable habitats, the otters have returned to a warm welcome from both citizens (“wah, look! so cute!!!”) and the government (useful to have a wild mascot to showcase the government’s success in creating a clean and green Singapore, after all).

While the Lutrogale perspicillata (smooth-coated otter) has been welcomed into this city, certain groups of Homo sapiens (humans) have been kept out – namely, stateless refugees. Historically, our government has turned away refugees, on the grounds that we have limited land and resources. Yet, given the numbers published in Population White Paper and (pre-COVID) open door policy to foreign talent, this argument clearly doesn’t hold water.

In the coming years, sea level rise will put millions living in SEA’s coastal cities at risk (in fact, parts of Ho Chi Minh and Bangkok could be underwater by 2050). What then, of the people? Will Singapore build a fortress to keep out climate refugees?

Before giving a quick answer, we should remember that Singapore is complicit in the displacement of both otters and climate refugees – our per capita carbon footprint is the highest in Asia Pacific, and 5x higher than the US if marine bunker fuel (the heaviest and dirtiest fuel critical for our port operations) were included in carbon emission calculations.

If this fact is new to you (as it was for me), it’s not surprising – local media attention on Singapore’s environmental success often divert scrutiny from our outsourced and disproportionately high carbon emissions.

Conclusion?

While we can and should appreciate otters, let’s also view them as a mirror that reflects the positive effects of Singapore’s environmental campaigns, but also refracts attention away from important questions about who receives care and who doesn’t in this meticulously curated city, now and in the years and decades to come.

Remember that next time you see the otters out and about! 😉

There’s really so much good stuff in this book, but if I wrote about everything I’ll never get this published, so I’m just gonna move ahead to the next book! Needless to say, I highly recommend you give this a read, and see how everything – food, people, education, culture, economy, future – is intrinsically tied to the environment.

This next book was one that I had to read when I went for a silent retreat late April. A very thin book, but one thick in substance. The kind of book that deserves multiple rounds of reading, because I think each round would surface different things in your spirit.

Here, Nouwen introduces us to the spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, who desired to live out Romans 12:2 –

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

In order to do that, we need to practice:

1)Solitude

• Contrary to popular belief, solitude is not moving away from people, but moving closer to them through compassionate ministry
  • We all know, compassion is hard – it requires “the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken”, when really, we would rather run the other way.
  • But in solitude, we learn to stop judging, because there is truly no sin (the root of pride, conflict, injustice, hatred) that is alien to us.
  • We learn to die to our neighbour – to give up measuring our value against others, and vice versa.
• Solitude is where the old self dies and the new self is born in Christ.
  • A place of great struggle, where we rid ourselves of scaffolding – friends, entertainment, work – and come face to face with self: naked, weak, vulnerable, sinful, deprived, broken me.
  • A sinful self, embraced by a holy God – and in that encounter, we are transformed.
  • Once we’re fully convicted of our great sinfulness and God’s even greater mercy, our life itself then becomes a ministry 🙂

2)Silence

• Silence is solitude practiced in action.
• It makes us pilgrims, guards the inner fire of God within us, and teaches us to speak.

When we use words to take hold of others, to defend ourselves or offend others, we fail to embody silence. But when the word calls forth healing and restoring, few words are needed: much can be said without much being spoken. 

• A real encounter with our loving Father transforms silence from emptiness to fullness, from anxiety to peace, from restlessness to restedness.

A man may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning others he is babbling ceaselessly. But there may be another who talks from morning till night and yet he us truly silent.

Abba Poeman

3)Prayer

• Solitude (being alone with God) and silence (listening to God) is the context within which prayer is practiced.
• Here, Nouwen was really helpful in distinguishing between:
  • The prayer of the mind –
    • where we reduce prayer to speaking with God (making it seem like a one-sided affair where there is no answer) OR thinking about God (as if God is a subject to be analysed, requiring hard mental energy)
    • The resultant crisis? Our minds may be filled with ideas about God, but our hearts remain far from Him. 
  • The prayer of the heart –
    • Our heart is not just the seat of our emotions, but the source of all our physical, emotional, intellectual, volitional, and moral energies. It is the seat of the will, the centre of our personal life; where God dwells and where Satan attacks.
    • Heart prayer then is one that directs itself to God from the centre of the person, thus affecting the whole of our humanness. It leads to that rest where the soul can dwell with God.
    • Such prayer helps us discern which of our ministerial activities are for God’s glory vs our own ego, so that we can become less ambiguous witnesses of Jesus.   

To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all-seeing, within you.

Theophan the Recluse

There’s a lot more that I didn’t fully unpack, so do yourself a favor and get a copy of this book! Find a nice, quiet spot to spend some time in solitude and reflection, and I trust that the Lord will speak to you as you set aside time to meet with Him 🙂

After reading As Kingfishers Catch Fire, I knew I had to get my hands on another Eugene Peterson book! And indeed, he doesn’t disappoint 🙂

This classic takes us through the Songs of Ascent (Psalms 120-134), traditionally sung by Hebrew pilgrims on the way up to Jerusalem to worship God. They are songs for the road of discipleship, the journey of faith.

I won’t go through each chapter/ psalm, but just highlight some of those that spoke to me:

1. Repentance // Psalm 120
   • Repentance is a no that is a yes
     • Not an emotion, but a decision.
     • Not feeling sorry, but deciding that you have been wrong in supposing you could manage your own life and be your own god.
   • Whenever we say no to one kind of life, there is pain. But when the way of life is in fact a way of death, a way of war, the quicker we leave it, the better. 

Repentance, the first word in Christian immigration, sets us on the way to travelling in the light. It is a rejection that is also an acceptance, a leaving that develops into an arriving, a no to the world that is a yes to God. 

2. Providence // Psalm 121

• The promise of Psalm 121 is not that we won’t suffer, but that nothing that befalls us (injury, illness, accident, distress) will have evil power over us, or be able to separate us from God.
• It assures us that God’s interest and watchful protection over us does NOT wax and wane in response to our spiritual temperature.
  • The same faith that works in the big things work in the little things.
  • The God of Genesis 1 who brought light out of darkness is also the God of this day who guards us from every evil!

3. Worship // Psalm 122

• We live in the age of sensation, thinking that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it.
• But the wisdom of God says something differen – we can act ourselves into feeling faster than we can feel ourselves into acting.
• Worship is primarily an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship.

4. Work // Psalm 127

• Psalm 127 insists on a perspective in which our effort is at the periphery and God’s work is at the centre.
• Before anything else, work is an activity of God.
• Christianity demands constant vigilance against “irreligiosa solicitudo pro Deo” – a blasphemous anxiety to do God’s work for Him.
• Relentless, compulsive work habits (which our society rewards and admires) is really a sign of weak faith and assertive pride, as if God can’t be trusted to accomplish His will, and we can rearrange the universe by our own effort.
• For Christians, work is a way of being in creative relationship with one another. We learn to practice what God is doing in love and justice, in helping and healing, in liberating and cheering. 

5. Obedience // Psalm 132

• There is a danger of reducing Christian existence to ritually obeying a few commandments that are congenial to our temperament and convenient to our standard of living.
• Psalm 132 gives us a vision into the future so that we can see what is right before us. 
  • If we define the nature of our lives by the mistake of the moment or the defeat of the hour or the boredom of the day, we will define it wrongly. 
  • We need roots in the past to give obedience ballast and breadth, we need a vision of the future to give obedience direction and goal.
• Christian living demands that we keep our feet on the ground; it also asks us to make a leap of faith; and the sense to know when to do which. 

Ultimately, discipleship is the supernatural and slow work of Scripture and Prayer. The Holy Spirit forms life in us through the fusion of God speaking to us in the Word, and we answering Him in prayer.

So read the Word slowly, read the Word imaginatively, read the Word prayerfully, and read the Word obediently!

That’s all for this post, hope you were blessed in the reading of it! 🙂