I’m reading Disciplines of a Godly Man and The Power of a Praying Husband and Wild at Heart. The latter two because my wife got them for me. The former because my pastor wanted to have a plan, a structural scaffolding, for our scheduled on-going meetings.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the intent or method of the author, mind you, but the Eldridge book is far too Iron John for me. He seems to think I should go outside and shoot a bear or climb a mountain or something. Sorry, but I outgrew such childish and selfish pursuits long before I started to get presbyopic. The endless mooning over cinematic fantasy really turned me off.

I have nothing good or bad to say about the Omartian book — although I might agree with my wife’s comment about books on prayer: Why not just do it, rather, instead of reading about it? Regardless, the jury is not even in session yet about this tome.

After the first three chapters of the Hughes book, my impression is that he is a bit obsessed with sex — or, rather, with avoiding it in all of its manifestations. I’m willing to accept the counsel, since anything else would make my married life impossible, but I think he’s way over the top, and about as warm and sweet as a frozen pickle. How does it make one more pure to avoid all thought of sex? I am totally clueless, and frankly doubt there’s any substance to it at all.

It’s really no wonder that people don’t want to be Christians, when the Christian culture is so anti-sex. There really should be a lot more sex, in my opinion. Way, way, way more sex. I’m not at all convinced that these people are understanding the meaning of scripture. But they sure do have the letters memorized!

I also think the author is wasting my time with his stories about childhood tennis practice et cetera. I find all discussion of sports figures as models of behaviour to be absurd. While the bits about Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemmingway were at least interesting, I’d hardly hold them up as exemplars of virtue, either.

In short, while I’m interested in this intelligent persons analysis and opinions, I question their validity and relevance. Nonetheless, I’m certainly going to do as he advises, because otherwise finger waggers will wag their fingers. I imagine one day they’ll all be in hell. I don’t intend to follow.