Alec Worrell-Welch > Recent Status Updates

I teared up a bit in these recent chapters.

I’m enjoying this read. It has strong City of Ember meets The Last Cuentista vibes.

I’m actually listening to a bootleg audiobook.

Very very good. His writing is incisive, and he points us all to ground our selves, our worth, and our life narratives in reality beyond our inner selves.

Gripping! Beck’s central thesis is that “turning inside ourselves” (I the self determine, create, and sustain my own meaning against a flood of others trying to do the same and outcompete me) is a major driver of modernity’s social ills and evils, whereas turning “outside ourselves toward transcendence” gifts us with security, value, and meaning that is stable, even when we are not.

Audiobook read with Alynda. 🙂 Gruesome in how real it feels. David Copperfield was whimsical even when it was dark (so I lost sight of some of the darkness). This one is gritty and set in my neck of the woods. Blarney!

I like the vibe

It’s nighttime, and there’s still a quarter of the book left. What’s to come, I wonder?

I enjoyed the beginning, but right now each character feels very flat, and their actions and conversations build more like a string of caricatures than the outplaying of organic tensions. The book addresses sensitive themes—a family’s faith convictions changing asymmetrically, hostility toward LGBT people in rural America—but it is currently not handling them with great depth, creativity, or sensitivity.

Finally got that audiobook back! He’s discussing trauma and repressed memories. It’s a hard listen right now.

This is full of beautiful practices to “thin the veil” and recognize God’s near presence. Each chapter also contains a few historical, theological, and exegetical nuggets that deepen our engagement of the text—a bit like the “Feasting on the Word” series. The main idea can feel overdone, though, and the shocking vulnerability and scope of personal disclosures invite a few questions.