I’ve been a fan of Andrew Peterson’s music for years, with his thoughtful lyrics full of meaning and truth and folky musical style (folk-rock is my favorite style of music).  His blog posts at MySpace and his new blog, the Rabbit Room, along with his lyrics, show a man who has explored the depths of God and is gifted with the ability to use words & music to convey those depths to us.  When I heard he was writing a novel, I was excited to see another facet of his creativity, and because I knew from his MySpace book suggestions that he enjoys science fiction/fantasy (as do I) I figured that he would probably write in that genre.

On The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness was a really funny, great book to read with plenty of suspense, a good storyline, and interesting characters – the recipe for a fantastic fantasy book in the great tradition of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.  My biggest disappointment was as a first book in a series, and with the way it left things at the end, I am already dying to read the next book that hasn’t even been written yet!

Summary from the publisher:
In the quiet land of Skree, the Igiby children—Janner, his younger brother Tink, and their crippled sister Leeli—stumble upon the lost jewels of Anniera and determine to return them. Unfortunately, the scary-bad Gnag the Nameless seeks the jewels for his own evil ends…and so our band of friends, accompanied by their trust dog Nugget, must escape with the help of their mom and grandfather (who happens to be an ex-pirate).

Their journey takes them through an inventively fantastical world of wonders, complete with memorable characters (like Gnag’s evil minions the Fangs and Peet the Sock Man), fanciful creatures (like sea dragons, snickbuzzards, toothy cows, flabbits, and bomnubbles), and captivating places (like the Books & Crannies bookstore, Shaggy Tavern, the Dark Sea of Darkness that divides the land of Skree from Anniera, the Glipwood Forest, Ice Prairies, and the Stony Mountains).

Through fast-paced storytelling, little ditties, songs, and poems, side-splitting asides, sensory descriptions of time and place, and characters rich in heart, courage, and smarts, Andrew Peterson has created a wondrous tale you’ll enjoy and treasure—just like those lost jewels.

My Review:
It certainly is a book for the whole family to enjoy, with plenty of funny asides that I’m sure stemmed from the author’s own children asking questions that he had to explain when conceiving the story for them. A few times I had to re-read them saying to myself, “Did I just read that right? Hilarious!” I am hoping to find a way to read the book to my nephew, who is 8 years old and has ADD, when he is visiting here, because I think he’ll really enjoy the story, too, and it is action-packed enough to keep his interest.  I know a book is good if I get so involved with the story that I don’t realize how late it is getting, and then I don’t feel the least bit sorry the next day that I’m tired and dragging.

Several times Janner, the oldest of the Igiby children, made me think of Andrew’s song “Little Boy Heart Alive”. I hear it as sort-of a soundtrack in the background of the action. Especially the 2nd verse, here are the lyrics:

Kings and castles in the neighborhood
Swords on the forest floor
Dragons in the magic wood
Better saddle your battle horse

Fighting Goliath
Better choose your weapons right
Five little stones and a faith on fire
In a little boy heart alive

Feel the beat of a distant thunder
It’s the sound of an ancient song
This is the Kingdom calling
Come now and tread the dawn

Come to the father
Come to the deeper well
Drink of the water
And come to live a tale to tell

Pages are turning now
This is abundant life
The joy in the journey
Is enough to make a grown man cry
With a little boy heart alive
from The Far Country

Knowing Andrew’s faith in Christ, I honestly looked for metaphors and allusions to Christ in the book. I saw Him many places, especially in Peet the Sock Man always looking out for the children and rescuing the whole family in spite of the grandfather’s unforgiveness towards him. How many times do we wrongly accuse God of letting us down, and then try to shut Him out and tell Him to leave us alone, and yet He continues to be there, love us, and lay down His life for us? This reminds me of another of Andrew’s songs, “For The Love of God”:

Now, love is not a feeling in your chest
It is bending down to wash another’s feet
It is faithful when the sun is in the west
And in the east

It can hurt you as it holds you
In its overwhelming flood
Till only the unshakeable is left
“This new command I give you,” He said,
“Love as I have loved”
So brother, love her better than yourself
And give her your heart
from The Far Country

Blog book giveaway
I couldn’t hardly believe it when I received the book in the mail, because when I submitted my blog for it I really didn’t figure with my low readership that they would actually let me participate.  What is even better, though, is that one of you lucky few people can get a free copy of the book (they gave me one to read and one to give away). Just leave a comment here with your e-mail address, and I will do the “scrolling method” (close my eyes while scrolling through the comments and then stop) of randomly picking a winner on Friday. Then, I will e-mail the winner and set up sending the book to them, and announce the winner here. Thank you so much, Andrew! 

Author Bio:
Andrew Peterson is a critically acclaimed singer-songwriter and recording artist best known for his Dove Award-winning songs of the year, “Nothing to Say” and “Family Man.” A natural-born storyteller (being a preacher’s kid from the south), he wrote and produced the popular Christmas play and musical, Behold the Lamb of God. He has recorded seven albums and tours every year. Andrew and his wife, Jamie, are the parents of two sons and a daughter and live in Nashville, Tennessee. His website is www.andrew-peterson.com.

Because Dr. White quotes several other scholars in this section, I am simply going to list the quotes that I found important or interesting. Also, listing these scholars and books will later be helpful for me to know what I should add to my library.

Prof. Paul W. Hoon The Integrity of Worship, 1971
Emphasizes the Christological center of Christian worship, and believes that it is bound directly to the events of salvation history. The “core of worship is God acting to give his life to man and to bring man to partake of that life.” The Christian life is a liturgical life. “Christian worship is God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ and man’s response.” It is a twofold action: that of “God to the human soul in Jesus Christ and in Man’s responsive action through Jesus Christ.” Through his Word, God “discloses and communicates his very being to man.” Key words are “revelation” and “response,” and at the center of both is Jesus Christ. (pg. 26)

Peter Brunner Worship in the Name of Jesus, translated from German by M.H. Bertram 1968
Parallels Hoon’s thinking, and “has the advantage of using the German word for worship Gottesdienst, a word that connotes both God’s service to humans and humans’ service to God.” He speaks of the “duality” of worship, but it is important to remember that God alone makes worship a possibility. “The gift of God evokes man’s devotion to God.” Brunner quotes Luther, who says of worship “that nothing else be done in it that our dear Lord Himself talk to us through His holy Word and that we, in turn, talk to Him in prayer and song of praise.” Brunner says that “prayer is the permission which God accords His sons to join their voices in the discussion of His affairs.” So, the duality of worship is overshadowed by a single focus, the activity of God both in self giving to us and also in prompting our response to God’s gifts. (pg. 26-27)

Prof. Jean-Jacques von Allmen Worship: Its Theology and Practice, 1965
Also agrees with the Christological basis of Christian worship, and makes a strong case for understanding Christian worship as the recapitulation of what God has already done. “Worship sums up and confirms ever afresh the process of saving history which has reached its culminating point in the intervention of Christ in human history, and through this summin-up and ever-repeated confirmation Christ pursues His saving work by the operation of the Holy Spirit.”  ”Worship is the epiphany of the Church,” which “because it sums up the history of salvation, enables the Church to become itself, to become conscious of itself and to confess what it essentially is.”

White summarizes, “worship is both threat of judgement and promise of hope to the world itself even though secular society professes indifference to what Christians do when they assemble.” Christian worship has three key dimensions: recapitulation, epiphany, and judgement. (pg. 27-28)

Chapter 1: What Do We Mean By “Christian Worship”?

Dr. White chooses to mainly approach defining Christian Worship by describing what Christians do when they come together for worship, and he will be describing “the devlopment, theology, and use of actual structures or services.” (pg. 22) Secondly he will also explore definitions of greater abstraction, and thirdly he will “examine some of the key words Christians choose most often to express what they experience as worship.” These things are consistent aspects of Christian worship throughout the history of the Church, despite many changes in world culture and how the Christian Church functions in it.

When describing what happens in Christian Worship, it is helpful to look at structures and services to describe the forms in which Christians operate. Structures are things like the calendar which organizes a year’s worship, which begins in the New Testament with a sense of having a weekly structure of time, and then annual calendars commemorating events that are important to the Christian community (Christmas, Easter, etc.), and there have also been daily schedules of public and private prayer developed in some communities. Dr. White will be looking at these more closely in Chapter 2, and in Chapter 3 he will be looking at the structures which shelter and enable Christian worship (things such as buildings, furnishings, etc.).

Services, then, are the actual gatherings of believers, and these take place daily (chap. 4) and weekly “service of the word” (chap. 5). Then there are other occasional services – baptism (and confirmation) to mark the “initiation” of outsiders becoming a believer (chap. 7), the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper (chap. 8), and then a variety of pastoral rites which mark life’s journey, such as services for healing and weddings, (chap. 9).