Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance by Tony Dungy. Tyndale Momentum. 288 pages. 2009. Audiobook read by Tony Dungy.
****

This book was released shortly after Coach Tony Dungy announced his retirement from coaching the Indianapolis Colts in the National Football League. I read the book when it was first released and recently read it again. The book is addressed to men, even more specifically to young men, though men of all ages will benefit from reading it.

Dungy writes that two young men were the motivation for him to write the book: “Two boys, two different backgrounds, two different upbringings. Both followed the “wide road” and ended up in prison, which tells me that our society is facing a widespread problem. It is not an inner-city problem, or an economic problem, or even a religious problem. The kind of ideas our young people are buying into and the pressure to conform are causing our teenagers to follow the path of least resistance.”

He states that the book came about due to two separate but related causes. First, after the release of his first book Quiet Strength he received a number of letters and emails from men, particularly young men, who indicated that they were struggling with what it meant to be a man in today’s culture. Second, he noticed that young men coming into the NFL were increasingly less prepared to be a man, and in need of more direction.

In thirty-one short chapters, Dungy shares a lifetime of wisdom, much of which he learned from his parents, on a wide variety of topics all designed to help develop what he calls an uncommon man. A few of the takeaways I had from the book were:

• Character. How you do things is more important than what you do. We build character through the little things we do.
• Integrity. Integrity is doing the right thing when nobody is watching. Dishonesty will eventually catch up with you. We can’t control our reputation (what others think of us), but we can control our integrity.
• Humility and Availability. Don’t blow your own horn. There is a fine line between confidence and pride. Billy Graham and Tom Landry were examples mentioned. God often works through ordinary, humble and available people.
• Stewardship. Stewardship recognizes that life is not about us, but about and owned by God. Stewardship is not ownership. How we steward our time and gifts is important.
• Convictions and Principles. It takes courage to stick with our convictions and principles. Don’t give in to peer pressure.
• Treating Women. The way you treat a woman will impact all other areas of your life. Many men have not had good role models in this area, having fathers who were either too strong or too passive.
• Fathers. Children need positive role models as fathers. Be present – don’t be an absentee father. Watch how you speak to your children –words matter. Make memories with your children.
• Friendship. What benefits do you bring to your friendships? Choose your friends for their values.
• Mentoring. Mentoring is building character into the lives of others and leaving a legacy.
• Work and Purpose. Be careful about making job/career decisions primarily based on money. Leave work at work. Be fully present with your family. Don’t be so busy making a living that you forget to live.
• Failure. Failure is part of the journey to success. The uncommon man stays focused on his goals and values during times of adversity.
• Style over Substance. Many men find their significance in status and success. Choosing style over substance obscures what is really important in living a significant life. A life centered on Christ will re-direct our focus to direct our priorities to what really matters. It is never too late to adjust our priorities. Don’t confuse your value with what you do.
• Sexual integrity. Sexual activity was designed for those in a marriage relationship. Run from sexual sin (porn, affairs, etc.).
• Platform/Role Model. Use whatever platform you have been given to positively impact lives. Right or wrong, someone is always watching you. It’s important to see yourself as a role model. Dungy shares the positive impact his parents and uncles have had on his life as role models.
• Faith and Relationship with Christ. You were created by God and He cares about you in every circumstance.
• Purpose. We were intentionally designed by God to have a unique and significant impact on those you meet, and also on those you will never meet.
• Significance. God calls us to be faithful, not successful. God’s scorecard is different from ours. At the end of each major part of the book Dungy helpfully summarizes the key points from that section. At the end of the book is a 32-page “Q&A” with Coach Dungy in which he answers 73 questions that relate to each of the chapters of the book. This would be an excellent book to read not only individually, but also with a son or as a part of a Men’s study group.   Since the publication of this book, Dungy has continued the Uncommon theme with The One Year Uncommon Life Daily Challenge (which I read daily) and Uncommon Marriage: What We’ve Learned about Lasting Love and Overcoming Life’s Obstacles Together.

Prayer Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Tim Keller

Christians are taught in their churches and schools that prayer is the most powerful way to experience God. But few receive instruction or guidance in how to make prayer genuinely meaningful. In Prayer, renowned pastor Timothy Keller delves into the many facets of this everyday act. Won’t you read along with Tammy and me? This week we look at

Chapter 2: The Greatness of Prayer

Rather, in them he reveals what he asked most frequently for his friends—what he believed was the most important thing God could give them. What is that? It is—to know him better.

• It means having the “eyes of their hearts. . . enlightened” (Ephesians 1:18).
• It is to have a more vivid sense of the reality of God’s presence and of shared life with him.
• Therefore, knowing God better is what we must have above all if we are to face life in any circumstances.
• Paul’s main concern, then, is for their public and private prayer life. He believes that the highest good is communion or fellowship with God.
• He does not see prayer as merely a way to get things from God but as a way to get more of God himself.
• If we give priority to the outer life, our inner life will be dark and scary.
• To discover the real you, look at what you spend time thinking about when no one is looking, when nothing is forcing you to think about anything in particular. At such moments, do your thoughts go toward God?
• If you aren’t joyful, humble, and faithful in private before God, then what you want to appear to be on the outside won’t match what you truly are.
• The infallible test of spiritual integrity, Jesus says, is your private prayer life.
• Those with a genuinely lived relationship with God as Father, however, will inwardly want to pray and therefore will pray even though nothing on the outside is pressing them to do so. They pursue it even during times of spiritual dryness, when there is no social or experiential payoff.
• At the heart of all the various ways of knowing God is both public and private prayer.
• I can think of nothing great that is also easy. Prayer must be, then, one of the hardest things in the world.
• When your prayer life finally begins to flourish, the effects can be remarkable.
• The Bible is all about God, and that is why the practice of prayer is so pervasive throughout its pages. The greatness of prayer is nothing but an extension of the greatness and glory of God in our lives. The Scripture is one long testimony to this truth.
• To fail to pray, then, is not to merely break some religious rule—it is a failure to treat God as God. It is a sin against his glory.
• Jesus Christ taught his disciples to pray, healed people with prayers, denounced the corruption of the temple worship (which, he said, should be a “house of prayer”), and insisted that some demons could be cast out only through prayer. He prayed often and regularly with fervent cries and tears (Heb 5:7), and sometimes all night.
• When he faced his greatest crisis, he did so with prayer. We hear him praying for his disciples and the church on the night before he died (John 17:1–26) and then petitioning God in agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Finally, he died praying.
• All Christians are expected to have a regular, faithful, devoted, fervent prayer life.
• Christians are taught that prayer should pervade their whole day and whole life—they should “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17).
• Prayer is so great that wherever you look in the Bible, it is there. Why? Everywhere God is, prayer is. Since God is everywhere and infinitely great, prayer must be all-pervasive in our lives.
• One of the greatest descriptions of prayer outside of the Bible was written by the poet George Herbert (1593–1633) in his “Prayer (I).” The poem is remarkable for tackling the immense subject of prayer in just one hundred words and without a single verb or prose construction. Instead, Herbert gives us some two dozen word pictures.
• Prayer is a natural human instinct.
• Prayer is a nourishing friendship.
• Prayer changes those around us.
• Prayer is a journey.
• Prayer helps us endure.
• Prayer is learning who you are before God and giving him your essence. Prayer means knowing yourself as well as God.
• Prayer is rebellion against the evil status quo of the world
• Prayer changes things.
• Prayer is a refuge.
• Through prayer, which brings heaven into the ordinary, we see the world differently, even in the most menial and trivial daily tasks. Prayer changes us.
• Prayer unites us with God himself.
• Prayer is awe, intimacy, struggle—yet the way to reality. There is nothing more important, or harder, or richer, or more life-altering. There is absolutely nothing so great as prayer.

• On My Shelf: Life and Books with Tom Schreiner. Matt Smethurst continues his series of visiting with various writers through a behind-the-scences glimpse into their lives as readers. This time he corresponds with Tom Schreiner, professor of New Testament theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

• Praying the Bible. Tim Challies reviews the new book Praying the Bible from Don Whitney.

• Kevin DeYoung Children’s Book. DeYoung’s first children’s book The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden will be published August 31.

BOOK REVIEW ~ You Must Read: Books That Have Shaped Our Lives. Various Authors. Banner of Truth. 304 pages. 2015
****

This book brings together more than thirty well-known Christian leaders and gives them the opportunity to talk about a Banner of Truth book that has made a lasting impact on their lives. The book is dedicated to Iain and Jean Murray, whose vision, dedication, ministry, and encouragement has undergirded the publication of every book selected.

As a book lover, and having read several books published by the Banner of Truth, this was a book that I loved. I was familiar with many of the contributors (R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Derek Thomas, Jerry Bridges, Mark Dever, Sinclair Ferguson, etc.), but many of the contributors were people I was not familiar with. Each shares a book that has made an impact on their lives, tells about the book and why it made such an impact.

The book is broken into 33 chapters. A few that I particularly enjoyed were:

• What Is an Evangelical? Written by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones – Alistair Begg. Begg writes about reading this book with his elders early in his ministry at Parkside Church in Cleveland.
• D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Vol. 1: The First Forty Years; Vol. 2: The Fight of Faith by Iain H. Murray – John MacArthur. This was my favorite chapter of the book. MacArthur writes “I had never encountered another pastor whose biblical convictions and philosophy of ministry rang so true with me. No pastor I had ever encountered so closely paralleled my own thinking about the church, the gospel, doctrine, conflict, cooperation, and especially preaching.”
• The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended by Jonathan Edwards – R.C. Sproul. Sproul writes “I studied his classic work The Freedom of the Will in depth and found his arguments, especially on Romans 9, compelling and irrefutable. I fought him tooth and nail, but in the end, I was convinced that I had been teaching and believing what I wanted the Bible to say rather than what it actually said. To this day, I owe Edwards a huge debt of gratitude.”
• Tracts and Letters of John Calvin – Ian Hamilton. Hamilton writes “It is in his Tracts and Letters that, perhaps most memorably, we see the heart of Calvin the pastor, and it was a large and capacious heart.” He also states that “No pastor more faithfully laboured to defend the sovereignty of God’s grace—not only for the sake of God’s glory but also for the good and security of his flock.”
• Revival Year Sermons (1859) by C. H. Spurgeon – Stuart Olyott. Olyott writes “Spurgeon’s opinion was that ‘there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.’”
• The Glory of Christ by John Owen – Sinclair B. Ferguson. Ferguson writes “It is safe to say that he goes down deeper, stays down longer, and comes up with greater spiritual riches than can be found in the vast bulk of contemporary Christian literature.”

An Epilogue is included which looks at the books from three perspectives – from Latin America, the Philippines and from the Grey House, Edinburgh.

Two key verses for the Banner of Truth are:
Psalm 60:4 (which gave rise to their name): You have given a banner to those who fear you, that it may be displayed because of the truth.
And Psalm 127:1: Unless the Lord build the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and got several recommendations for future reading.

BOOK NEWS:

• ChristianAudio.com’s Free Audiobook Download -“Eight Twenty Eight: When Love Didn’t Give Up”.   This is a story about God’s miraculous love of Ian and Larissa Murphy. It’s a story of their relationship, sustained by God’s patient and persistent love, through tragedy and into a Christian marriage. In that way, it’s a miraculous story, because in every sentence, there’s a whisper, then a word, then a celebration shout that always speaks of that persistent love in Jesus Christ.
• Why You Should Read Moby Dick. R.C. Sproul encourages his readers to “Read Moby Dick, and then read it again.”
• Bestsellers ≠ Best Books. Matthew Maule writes “The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association has compiled a list of the best-selling Christian books of 2014. If these books are characteristic of the thought and theology most associated with Christianity in America, perhaps it is not surprising that many are leaving and fewer people are joining.”
• 5 Best Books on Apologetics. Bryan Baise writes “The following are my 5 favorite,not the 5 most seminal works of apologetics.”
• David Brooks Charts the Road to Character. Collin Hansen interviews David Brooks, author of the new book The Road to Character, which I’m reading now.

Prayer Book Club– Won’t you read along with us?

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Tim Keller

Christians are taught in their churches and schools that prayer is the most powerful way to experience God. But few receive instruction or guidance in how to make prayer genuinely meaningful. In Prayer, renowned pastor Timothy Keller delves into the many facets of this everyday act. Won’t you read along with Tammy and me? This week we look at:

CHAPTER ONE ~ The Necessity of Prayer

• Kathy’s jolting challenge, along with my own growing conviction that I just didn’t get prayer, led me into a search. I wanted a far better personal prayer life. I began to read widely and experiment in prayer. As I looked around, I quickly came to see that I was not alone.
• You are with Another, and he is unique. God is the only person from whom you can hide nothing. Before him you will unavoidably come to see yourself in a new, unique light. Prayer, therefore, leads to a self-knowledge that is impossible to achieve any other way.
• In a sermon on the gospel, Owen gave due diligence to laying the doctrinal foundation of Christian salvation. Then, however, he exhorted his hearers to “get an experience of the power of the gospel . . . in and upon your own hearts, or all your profession is an expiring thing.”24 This heart experience of the gospel’s power can happen only through prayer—both publicly in the gathered Christian assembly and privately in meditation.
• In my pursuit of a deeper prayer life, I chose a counterintuitive course. I deliberately avoided reading any new books on prayer at all. Instead, I went back to the historical texts of Christian theology that had formed me and began asking questions about prayer and the experience of God—questions.
• I found guidance on the inward life of prayer and spiritual experience that took me beyond the dangerous currents and eddies of the contemporary spirituality debates and movements.
• There is an intelligent mysticism in the life of faith . . . of living union and communion with the exalted and ever-present Redeemer. . . . He communes with his people and his people commune with him in conscious reciprocal love.
• As I pondered that verse, I had to marvel that Peter, in writing to the church, could address all his readers like this. He didn’t say, “Well, some of you with an advanced spirituality have begun to get periods of high joy in prayer. Hope the rest of you catch up.” No, he assumed that an experience of sometimes overwhelming joy in prayer was normal. I was convicted.
• We are not called to choose between a Christian life based on truth and doctrine or a life filled with spiritual power and experience. They go together.
• Rather, I was meant to ask the Holy Spirit to help me experience my theology.
• I made four practical changes to my life of private devotion. First, I took several months to go through the Psalms, summarizing each one.
• The second thing I did was always to put in a time of meditation as a transitional discipline between my Bible reading and my time of prayer. Third, I did all I could to pray morning and evening rather than only in the morning. Fourth, I began praying with greater expectation.
• I have found new sweetness in Christ and new bitterness too, because I could now see my heart more clearly in the new light of vital prayer. In other words, there were more restful experiences of love as well as more wrestling to see God triumph over evil, both in my own heart and in the world.
• Prayer is the only entryway into genuine self-knowledge. It is also the main way we experience deep change—the reordering of our loves.Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do and be in life. We must learn to pray. We have to.

BOOK REVIEW ~ You Must Read: Books That Have Shaped Our Lives. Various Authors. Banner of Truth. 304 pages. 2015
****

This book brings together more than thirty well-known Christian leaders and gives them the opportunity to talk about a Banner of Truth book that has made a lasting impact on their lives. The book is dedicated to Iain and Jean Murray, whose vision, dedication, ministry, and encouragement has undergirded the publication of every book selected.

As a book lover, and having read several books published by the Banner of Truth, this was a book that I loved. I was familiar with many of the contributors (R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Derek Thomas, Jerry Bridges, Mark Dever, Sinclair Ferguson, etc.), but many of the contributors were people I was not familiar with. Each shares a book that has made an impact on their lives, tells about the book and why it made such an impact.

The book is broken into 33 chapters. A few that I particularly enjoyed were:

• What Is an Evangelical? Written by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones – Alistair Begg. Begg writes about reading this book with his elders early in his ministry at Parkside Church in Cleveland.
• D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Vol. 1: The First Forty Years; Vol. 2: The Fight of Faith by Iain H. Murray – John MacArthur. This was my favorite chapter of the book. MacArthur writes “I had never encountered another pastor whose biblical convictions and philosophy of ministry rang so true with me. No pastor I had ever encountered so closely paralleled my own thinking about the church, the gospel, doctrine, conflict, cooperation, and especially preaching.”
• The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended by Jonathan Edwards – R.C. Sproul. Sproul writes “I studied his classic work The Freedom of the Will in depth and found his arguments, especially on Romans 9, compelling and irrefutable. I fought him tooth and nail, but in the end, I was convinced that I had been teaching and believing what I wanted the Bible to say rather than what it actually said. To this day, I owe Edwards a huge debt of gratitude.”
• Tracts and Letters of John Calvin – Ian Hamilton. Hamilton writes “It is in his Tracts and Letters that, perhaps most memorably, we see the heart of Calvin the pastor, and it was a large and capacious heart.” He also states that “No pastor more faithfully laboured to defend the sovereignty of God’s grace—not only for the sake of God’s glory but also for the good and security of his flock.”
• Revival Year Sermons (1859) by C. H. Spurgeon – Stuart Olyott. Olyott writes “Spurgeon’s opinion was that ‘there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless we preach what nowadays is called Calvinism. It is a nickname to call it Calvinism; Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.’”
• The Glory of Christ by John Owen – Sinclair B. Ferguson. Ferguson writes “It is safe to say that he goes down deeper, stays down longer, and comes up with greater spiritual riches than can be found in the vast bulk of contemporary Christian literature.”

An Epilogue is included which looks at the books from three perspectives – from Latin America, the Philippines and from the Grey House, Edinburgh.

Two key verses for the Banner of Truth are:
Psalm 60:4 (which gave rise to their name): You have given a banner to those who fear you, that it may be displayed because of the truth.
And Psalm 127:1: Unless the Lord build the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and got several recommendations for future reading.

BOOK NEWS:

• ChristianAudio.com’s Free Audiobook Download -“Eight Twenty Eight: When Love Didn’t Give Up”.   This is a story about God’s miraculous love of Ian and Larissa Murphy. It’s a story of their relationship, sustained by God’s patient and persistent love, through tragedy and into a Christian marriage. In that way, it’s a miraculous story, because in every sentence, there’s a whisper, then a word, then a celebration shout that always speaks of that persistent love in Jesus Christ.
• Why You Should Read Moby Dick. R.C. Sproul encourages his readers to “Read Moby Dick, and then read it again.”
• Bestsellers ≠ Best Books. Matthew Maule writes “The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association has compiled a list of the best-selling Christian books of 2014. If these books are characteristic of the thought and theology most associated with Christianity in America, perhaps it is not surprising that many are leaving and fewer people are joining.”
• 5 Best Books on Apologetics. Bryan Baise writes “The following are my 5 favorite,not the 5 most seminal works of apologetics.”
• David Brooks Charts the Road to Character. Collin Hansen interviews David Brooks, author of the new book The Road to Character, which I’m reading now.

Prayer Book Club– Won’t you read along with us?

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Tim Keller

Christians are taught in their churches and schools that prayer is the most powerful way to experience God. But few receive instruction or guidance in how to make prayer genuinely meaningful. In Prayer, renowned pastor Timothy Keller delves into the many facets of this everyday act. Won’t you read along with Tammy and me? This week we look at:

CHAPTER ONE ~ The Necessity of Prayer

• Kathy’s jolting challenge, along with my own growing conviction that I just didn’t get prayer, led me into a search. I wanted a far better personal prayer life. I began to read widely and experiment in prayer. As I looked around, I quickly came to see that I was not alone.
• You are with Another, and he is unique. God is the only person from whom you can hide nothing. Before him you will unavoidably come to see yourself in a new, unique light. Prayer, therefore, leads to a self-knowledge that is impossible to achieve any other way.
• In a sermon on the gospel, Owen gave due diligence to laying the doctrinal foundation of Christian salvation. Then, however, he exhorted his hearers to “get an experience of the power of the gospel . . . in and upon your own hearts, or all your profession is an expiring thing.”24 This heart experience of the gospel’s power can happen only through prayer—both publicly in the gathered Christian assembly and privately in meditation.
• In my pursuit of a deeper prayer life, I chose a counterintuitive course. I deliberately avoided reading any new books on prayer at all. Instead, I went back to the historical texts of Christian theology that had formed me and began asking questions about prayer and the experience of God—questions.
• I found guidance on the inward life of prayer and spiritual experience that took me beyond the dangerous currents and eddies of the contemporary spirituality debates and movements.
• There is an intelligent mysticism in the life of faith . . . of living union and communion with the exalted and ever-present Redeemer. . . . He communes with his people and his people commune with him in conscious reciprocal love.
• As I pondered that verse, I had to marvel that Peter, in writing to the church, could address all his readers like this. He didn’t say, “Well, some of you with an advanced spirituality have begun to get periods of high joy in prayer. Hope the rest of you catch up.” No, he assumed that an experience of sometimes overwhelming joy in prayer was normal. I was convicted.
• We are not called to choose between a Christian life based on truth and doctrine or a life filled with spiritual power and experience. They go together.
• Rather, I was meant to ask the Holy Spirit to help me experience my theology.
• I made four practical changes to my life of private devotion. First, I took several months to go through the Psalms, summarizing each one.
• The second thing I did was always to put in a time of meditation as a transitional discipline between my Bible reading and my time of prayer. Third, I did all I could to pray morning and evening rather than only in the morning. Fourth, I began praying with greater expectation.
• I have found new sweetness in Christ and new bitterness too, because I could now see my heart more clearly in the new light of vital prayer. In other words, there were more restful experiences of love as well as more wrestling to see God triumph over evil, both in my own heart and in the world.
• Prayer is the only entryway into genuine self-knowledge. It is also the main way we experience deep change—the reordering of our loves.Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do and be in life. We must learn to pray. We have to.

 Molina: The Story of the Father Who Raised an Unlikely Baseball Dynasty by Bengie Molina with Joan Ryan. Simon and Schuster. 272 pages. 2015
****

This book tells of the love story between father Pai, and oldest son Bengie Molina. It is an autobiography of Bengie as well as the incredible story of a family that produced three major league baseball catchers (José, Yadier and Bengie), who each have earned two World Series championships.

Pai was a very talented baseball player who had the potential but never made it to the major leagues. In fact, Bengie writes that people will tell you that Pai was a better player than any of his sons. Bengie does not reveal until late in the book why Pai didn’t play in the major leagues.

Pai taught and coached youth baseball, which was his passion. His rules were about the same thing: respect—for coaches, umpires, teammates, teachers, parents, the game, yourself. In addition to baseball, Pai enjoyed drinking beer and playing dominoes with his friends.

Mai (Bengie’s mother) was a good fit for Pai. She was lively and gregarious enough to fill Pai’s silences. And what luck to find a girl who loved baseball as much as he did.

As far as his faith, Bengie writes “My baptism and communion were pretty much the extent of my church experience. My parents weren’t even married in a church – church weddings cost too much. As a child, on the few occasions I found myself in the Vega Alta church, I didn’t feel that God would live in such a place. The door was thick and heavy, and when it closed behind me, I imagined being sealed inside an enormous crypt, cut off from everything alive.”

I’m a St. Louis Cardinals fan and my favorite player is Yadier Molina. Bengie tells the story that Yadier was the only five-year-old in the history of Little League to infuriate an umpire enough to get tossed from a game (for calling the umpire an obscene name).

Bengie started his major league career with the California Angels, later playing for the Toronto Blue Jays, San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers. He retired in 2010 but stayed in the game as a coach.

Bengie writes of not being happy in his marriage, indicating that they were two unhappy strangers who shared two beautiful daughters and little else. He writes of being attracted to another girl named Jamie while married, who he would later marry. This did not go over well with Pai, who saw him as being disloyal and not putting his family first. That put a strain on Pai and Bengie’s relationship, something that was very painful for Bengie, as Pai would refuse to take Bengie’s phone calls.

Sadly, not long after the two were reconciled, Pai died at age 58 of a massive heart attack on his beloved field across the street from their home where he taught and coached baseball. That is where his wake was held, on the spot he had crossed a million times with his bags of balls and bats. Bengie writes that this was where he had lived, in the seam between baseball and family, and this was where he had taken his final steps.

Bengie writes about Pai’s wake: “A light rain fell as we carried Pai’s closed casket out of the tent and onto the baseball field. The baselines and batter’s boxes had been carefully chalked. We carried the casket to first base, then second and third. The mayor delivered a play-by-play of the action, as if Pai were rounding the bases. I picked up first base, Cheo second, and Yadier third. The mayor’s voice grew louder and more excited as we carried Pai toward home. His last trip around the diamond. A thousand people leapt to their feet.”

Bengie writes that playing in the Major Leagues was not Pai’s dream. His dream was to be a good father and husband and raise good sons. Through baseball, he taught his sons how to be men. That was his life’s work.

This is a very well written book and one that I couldn’t put down.

Prayer Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God by Tim Keller

 Last week Tammy and I completed reading and discussing Tim Keller’s book Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes us Just. Our next book will be his new book on prayer, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God. Won’t you read along with us?

• God Wrote a Book. Watch this short (5 minute) and beautifully filmed video about the Bible from John Piper.
• An Interview with Sam Storms and Leland Ryken on the Life and Legacy of J.I. Packer. Justin Taylor interviews the two authors of new books on J.I. Packer.
• 10 Great Quotes from “Chosen by God”. Tim Challies writes “R.C. Sproul’s book Chosen by God is undoubtedly one of the most important books ever written on the subject of God’s sovereignty in salvation.”
• World Magazine’s Books of the Year. They pick books in four categories – Fiction, Accessible Theology, Current Events/Public Affairs and History/Biography.