Cory and The Seventh Story -a review

This is a lovely book. I love that in reading it with children, many adults would be given pause for thought. The illustrations are lovely, making the book a desirable artefact in itself. The story is simple yet with a profound point about the way that the stories we tell ourselves justify and shape the way we respond to others and enable or disable good relating to other people in our society. The overall story has a parabolic feel but without being too didactic. This has the potential to be one of those fables that gets re-told and becomes a reference-point for conversations. If it helps lots of people to gain a vocabulary to speak about the kinds of stories we tell and to make better choices as a result, it will have achieved much and I hope it does.



I liked also that it doesn't have a 'happily ever after' ending but rather a 'where are we/you in the story' sort of ending which invites reflection and response. I do hope that this book gets a wide readership before the inevitable take down by the foxes and the badgers gets underway.



In terms of my less positive comments, I think I was slightly disappointed that the implicitly-critiqued stories in the book didn't really include the redemptive violence trope (though it does show up by implication). I was rather hoping that this would have been more directly challenged, but I see that the aim of this book wasn't quite consistent with that, so I do not fault it for not being the book I thought it might be. On the other hand, this does point to the need for us maybe to find ways to demythologise also the myth of redemptive violence for children and young people. I hope that more progressive writers will attempt to produce good stuff for children (and those who read to them, of course). This is a model of what could be possible.



Children's Book — The Seventh Story

Cory & the Seventh Story Website
Brian McLaren’s Website
Gareth Higgins’ Website
The Porch Magazine Website
Ireland Retreats Website
Movies & Meaning Website
The New Story Festival Website

#CoryAndTheSeventhStory



I received and e-copy of this book for review purposes. I doing so I am under no obligation to write a favourable review, merely to review it within 30 days of receiving it.

I've been noticing signs of this a bit lately with some of the people I work among.

It would seem that younger males especially are being bombarded with hyper-idealised images of not only what females “should” look like, but also how they themselves “should” look. By watching those fit, hairless (but presumably sexually successful) specimens on television programmes or on social media, it’s as if the famed “male gaze” is being savagely and pitilessly turned back on themselves.

It's not the first time I've remarked on it. but I do think maybe there's another question to ask that could potentially help in understanding this. It's rooted in my own pre-adolescent experience and reflecting on how that played into growing up subsequently. As I wrote there;

As an 8-year old boy I can distinctly remember two interacting issues being a part of my life. One was reading comics of the superhero genre; especially Spider-Man. The other issue was that I was very thin (mostly as a result of having thin bones). The problem I had with these two things together was that I was taking in images on a regular basis of male bodies which were well muscled, though not body-builder beefy, and graceful (lovingly drawn?) This male body shape filled my imaginative space and what I take to be my mimetic instinct drew me towards a desire to be something like that image. 

What I'm now reflecting further on is what stood in the way of myself and, presumably, my peers following through in the way that many young men do in the studies the linked article report? Clearly the incipient pressures were present -and the Charles Atlas body-building adverts in our comics and the 'Boy's Own' articles for training regimes were trading off (literally) some concerns that pre-pubescent boys had but what made the difference so that we largely followed a trajectory which didn't involve such body modding and extreme body-image issues? (And while I'm asking that question, I'm wondering what was the experience of my female peers at that time?).

I know for myself that part of what helped was seeing pop-stars who were slim or even thin and not fulfilling the film-star 'good looks' paradigm. In doing that, I was able to begin to re-calibrate my sense of what counted as beautiful (or at least okay) and to critique the given images. I think I began to think that a set of norms that excluded so many of us were suspect.

It's worth thinking about some more. My question remains, how to help other and many more young people to be weaned off toxic imagery and norms.

From the Inside Out -review

This is a nicely written book about mission. It's nicely written in that it's based in personal experience which is well-narrated and gives a good understanding of why the author has grown and evolved in their understanding of mission. It's nicely written too because it's just the right amount of challenging!

I helps us to understand what mission is and, more importantly, helps us to decolonise our thinking about mission. One of the main objectives of the book seems to be to help us to understand the way that mission by western churches for a long time has tended to mirror the imperialism of our host /sending cultures. And, given the writer is USAmerican, 'imperial' in this context includes the USA.

One of the big themes that emerges is one that is really important for us to understand: that when we conceive and execute mission as a delivery of a package of care, aid or message to passive recipients, we get it wrong. Now Kuja is very kind and gives more than due concern for the cultural-cognitive disabilities of those who end up doing 'imperialist mission' (my words not his). This means that people are charitably assumed to be operating according to their lights and the best motives are assumed. In this he is a model of civility in argument that Christians (and others) in our times would do well to note and emulate.

'Imperialist mission' gets it wrong because it assumes that mission is one-way. Kuja challenges us to see that it is two-way; there is mutuality (something we see Paul wrestling with in the first chapter of Romans imho); we have something to bring and to receive. God has things for us to learn whether as recipients or donors, missioners or en-missioned. We might do well to recall the sending of the 12 and the 72 in Luke's gospel: there we see the apostles instructed to receive the hospitality and the "peace" of those among whom they are sent. Enforced mutuality; reversed power dynamics.

I'm certainly considering recommending this book to my students who are being trained in mission. It might well appear on next year's book list. I might even recommend a chapter as an inter-session reading.

By way of disclaimer. I received and e-copy of this book for review purposes. In doing so I was in no way obliged to review favourably (or otherwise) simply to review within a reasonable period of receiving a copy.

From the Inside Out on Amazon
From the Inside Out Book Trailer
Ryan Kuja Website
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Ryan Kuja