Book Review: Good Morning God

Title: Good Morning God

Author: none admitted

Date: 2003

Publisher: Honor Books

Length: 222 pages

ISBN: 1-56292-301-3

Quote: "We know that time with God can really make our days rich and meaningful,,,How can we work it in? Mornings are often so full that we feel lucky to get out the door with our shoes matching. How in the world can we make time to think...?...Good Morning, God! is a collection of short meditations and stories to make it possible to fit a quiet, life-changing moment into your morning."

And can spirituality be squeezed into "moments" snatched from the edges of worldly hustle-bustle? The Infinite can take the time to bond with an infinite number of created mortals who try to make the intensity of "quality time" with their Heavenly Father, their natural parents, and their children compensate for the amount of time they devote to more lucrative matters. With God all things are possible. But does God believe that people who approach morning prayer as something to be shoehorned into "moments" are sincere enough to deserve even moments of Infinity?

I don't know, but I would guess, as do the anonymous writers of this little paperback book, that much depends on the intention the person holds in mind throughout the day. If we go through our days continually attuned to the Great Spirit, continually offering praise and thanksgiving and intercession and petition over everything we do, we may hope to be excused from spending two hours on our knees every morning. At least I know that I'm among a tremendous number of Christians who have been betting our hope of salvation on this belief.

A few years ago I complained that another devotional book seemed to aim at lulling readers to sleep. That is not this book's intention. The authors' focus is on beginning a day of active spiritual practice. Their target audience are responsible adults who think about making decisions, helping one other person at a time, seeking reconciliation or recovery; the authors don't cutesipate readers with a lot of the kind of twaddle five-year-olds know enough to reject, about how fighting the good fight of faith, in their case, means doing what they're told when they're told and keeping their teeth bared at all times. It's possible that the friend who gave me this one thought I'd like it better than the book that seemed to aim at a sedative effect. I do.

Each day's short reading takes up one two-page spread, so here are more than three months' worth of undated devotional readings. They seem a bit US-centric for a publisher who's so proud to claim iinternationality, and although I seem to recall reading that she belongs to a church I wouldn't classify Marian Wright Edelman as a Christian author, but US readers ahould enjoy the stories about our public figures.

If they can read them, that is., Because here's what's not to like about this book--it's printed in dark gold-colored ink on semi-gloss paper. The type's large enough for people with normal vision. (Most of the time I still enjoy normal uncorrected vision; during glyphosate reactions--I would not have made this up--I reach for a little magnifying glass.) The type's not clear. Reading, I find myself able to recognize each word because our brains actually start guessing the end of a sentence as we read the beginning, We read, "Peter Miller," and expect that the next word will identify something he did. Sure enough, "Peter Miller traveled." Where? He travelled "the seventy miles to Philadelphia on foot to plead for the life of..." (The story's on page 128.) But the numbers, whether page numbers or Scriptural references, don't fit into this verbal logic of sentences, and if I want to know what those little blurs are, I have to use the magnifying glass to determine that in fact some of them are ornamental squiggles rather than numbers. I can't look at the familiar Bible verse on page 129 and see that it's Romans 3:23. My individual brain is not the kind that retains the chapter and verse numbers so, even though Romans 3:23 is chain-referenced in the Bible I used at college, I would not be able to use this book to direct me to read the Scripture in its context. For me the novelty of having to stare at a printed page to see the numbers is only slightly irritating. For the people who usually buy books from me in real life, this is the kind of thing that not only makes them shove a book back onto the shelf, but makes them feel discouraged and "old" and walk away without even looking for another book that might be easier to read, with their current glasses.

My verdict? At the very best, this book was printed and published by very young people whose parents were still young and healthy, who had never known anyone who had any sort of eye problems. I congratulate them and I hope they've widened their circle of acquaintance to be more inclusive by now. If you don't enjoy challenging your eyes and playing with "invisible ink," get another devotional. Too bad about the writers who labored in obscurity to find fresh, relevant stories to go with each Bible verse. They deserved black ink..