Summary: Dr. Robert L. Saucy explores the biblical concept of the heart, as the center of the person’s thoughts, emotions and actions. Focused on the heart, Saucy exegetes the biblical text to find the way of spiritual formation. From the text he shows how “treasures” are stored in the heart, why we act the way we do, and how God can transform a person’s heart (thoughts, emotions and actions).

Review: Minding the Heart – The Way of spiritual Transformation is now on my list of books every Christian should read. (A distinction shared only by three other books).

A plethora of spiritual formation books have flooded the marketplace. Some of them are helpful, but many of them are over-glorified self-help or self-improvement books. Minding the Heart, however, is completely different.

Saucy explores the multi-leveled heart. He doesn’t just tell us that it is a person’s core, but he shows us from scripture how it is. Nor does Saucy give bumper-sticker theology here with band-aid advice. No. Instead he has presented a detailed systematic theology on the heart, its corrupt nature, and its transformation in Christ, as well as how the believer ought to go about opening his heart up to transformation under God’s grace.

What Saucy prescribes in the book is at once terribly difficult, and wonderfully simple. It isn’t so much a work, as a willingness to be worked on. It isn’t a matter of becoming moralists who will ourselves toward good behavior, but a matter of opening the core of our hearts through meditation on the Word of God, prayer, and living in Christian community.

Minding the Heart is a biblical book about spiritual formation. Unlike so many other books on the topic, I didn’t find myself at the end of the book trying to recalibrate my thinking to understand the concept being presented. Instead I found myself being enlightened with insights to the Scriptures. At one point I said to myself, “What Dr. Saucy is writing about is exactly what I’ve seen throughout the Bible.”

This book is brilliant in its simplicity. It gives believers a wonderful understanding of how spiritual transformation takes place. And most of all, it is richly biblical.

Rating: 5/5 (I Loved It!)

Note: I received a physical copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Summary: Generations ago a group of Amish travelled through the stars to settle the planet of Alabaster. Once there, they continued to live their simple life. But when Jebediah Miller discovers that Alabaster’s sun is dying he uses forbidden technology to call for help. The transport ship that picks the group up seems to be their salvation. The ship, though, is also transporting something else. Something dark. Something that would make Jebediah Miller and the rest of the Amish wish they had stayed on Alabaster.

Review: It all began as a joke.

The farce is retold in the novel’s introduction. Kerry Nietz took the title Amish Vampires in Space and ran with it, though. When I first heard the name of the book, I naturally assumed it was a satire of the over-abundance of Amish romance titles.

It’s not.

Nietz took the satirical title and wrote a serious novel. And he succeeds. Big time.

I became familiar with Nietz’ work through his excellent Dark Trench Saga. I’d categorize his stories as hard science fiction, and he brings that same attention to detail into this novel. He writes about Amish culture effectively and accurately (I’m moderately familiar with Amish society). He has also crafted a future that is quite believable.

The story feels like very natural, in that, I believed that a group of Amish had once purchased a ride to a new planet to colonize with their way of life. I believed the conditions that caused Jebediah Miller to violate the rules against using technology. And I found the situation that led to the vampires on the space ship well grounded.

Amish Vampires in Space is almost equally character and plot driven. The plot takes slight precedence in the story, but the characters (both “Amishers” and “Englishers”) are likable and relatable.

This is a great novel. There are clashes of worldview. Conflicts within both the ranks of the Amish and the space-farers. Explorations of rules versus grace. And, of course, lots and lots of vampires to worry about. (And how do the pacifist-Amish respond to the violent outbreak?)

The only problem with the novel is one of its strengths… the title. Every time I have mentioned the book to someone, I’ve had to add, “but it’s a serious book.” Indeed, the first time I heard the title I thought it was a farce. Reading the history of how this book came about, though, the title makes sense, and I can’t imagine another title.

Amish Vampires in Space is a solid stand-alone novel. (A few loose strands have left open the possibility for sequels.) So who should read it? Science fiction fans should certainly pick this up. Especially fans of hard science fiction. Readers who also enjoy Amish novels will also find much to enjoy in this book… even if they’re not terribly interested in science fiction. Finally, readers who want to read something completely and utterly unique need to check this out.

Rating: 5/5 (I Loved It)

Today was particularly terrible.

I can't go into all the details... I need to protect the guilty parties.

In a nutshell my day was characterized by doing favors for people taking advantage of me. Having my time disregarded. Having my work dismissed. Being shown incredible disrespect. And a bunch of financial craziness to top it all off.

Then I came home.

Actually, I couldn't come home because the private road I live on was a sheet of four inch thick ice.

So I spent nearly four hours with a coal shovel digging out my road enough to get the cars into the driveway.

When I came home and got stuck I was furious. Fuming. Frustrated. Other f-words. I was already exhausted and then I had to deal with this.

I was probably boiling for about an hour into my shoveling "adventure." I was wet (it started to rain), hungry (I barely ate anything all day) and upset (all I wanted to do was come home and read Amish Vampires in Space).

I started praying.

Not those nice, precious, sentimental prayers. No sir. It was one of those davidic, complain to God about everything that's going on sort of prayers.

I think I already mentioned... I was really angry.

Somewhere in my rabid ranting to the Living God of the universe he brought to mind a lyric from an older O.C. Supertones song, Jury Duty:

The chorus specifically came to mind:

And this just made me angrier.

But I said (still in my furious prayer-mode), "I am flaming-mad. I know I'm going to have to keep shoveling for hours. And I'm going to be angry the whole time, and I'm going to be angry when I come inside to my family. I don't want to be angry... I don't want to be furious, but I can't change. If you don't want me a ball of rage, you're going to have to change me." I shoveled a bit more, then added, "Please help me."

And I'm not sure when it happened. But at some point I started singing that O.C. Supertones song. Then I transitioned to sing the doxology . . . out loud: 

I'm exhausted.

Nothing has changed. All the drama and problems still exist. God didn't take away any of the circumstances.

He changed me.

So, while there's plenty of great philosophical evidences for the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus . . . here is a simple personal evidence.

God changed me.