17 Things My Kids Taught Me about God: Parables of Spiritual Sight

This is a short little book with tons of insight. The author was inspired by the perspective and insights of his 3 children. Provided fresh new ways to think about who Jesus is and our walk with him.

I took up Stiles' "17 Things" (with its Lego-decorated cover) right after reading Gregg Braden's "Walking Between The Worlds: The Science of Compassion" (which sports a lotus mantra, as art, and a quotation from the Dead Sea Scrolls on its cover). Only a Baptist preacher's kid who converted to Anglicanism, as I have, might choose to finish and compare two such works. But if you haven't achieved the Peace that Passes Understanding, it might prove itself a worthwhile armchair journey for you. Stiles, a former campus chaplain, uses 17 chapters to share the spiritual lessons he's learning while creating a Christian family with his wife and three sons. Each of these stories illustrates, often tenderly, an Essene Mirror of Compassion as Braden outlines them: Isaac, age five, acts to save-the-day when his older brother is pained after being excluded from a party (Mirror 1: reading the needs of the moment); Tristan asks why God doesn't show himself, but then takes comfort in recalling his dad's finding him when he was lost (Mirror 5: seeing the essence of God reflected in our parents & Mirror 3: the lessons of lost innocence). Conspicuous typos serve to specify two of Stiles' subjects. On page 44 there's one in a sentence that concludes, "so don't have sex with someone you're not married to." On page 51, Stiles meets the Adversary, and his sentence, "That's when Satan meet [sic] me," comes just before, "My son was dying, my thinking was jumbled." As with Braden's, this book is for those readying, or prepared, to "take up" the disciplines of Christian (or Essential) living. It is full of compassion (and laced with judgment based upon experience).