Today I downloaded some books onto my Kindle for holiday reading.  It happens that two of them are by authors I know or have known in real life.

Mark Haddon sat next to or opposite me at school for two years in the early nineteen seventies, so I am always curious to read his work and see who he is 'quoting'... such as our class teacher from 1972/3 who gave her name to a character in A Spot of Bother.

Less known is Peter Johnstone who has assured me I won't like his debut novel... time will tell.  He and his family attended the same church as I did for a number of years in the late nineteen nineties and, by the quirks of these things, have some convoluted connections with the Gathering Place.

Two very different people, two very different books, but these and a few others will help some very long journeys to pass in the next little while!

A whole generation of theological students was exptected to wade its way through Walter Wink's tomes in the Powers series.  They were challenging and insightful explorations of a central thesis roughly thus:

The powers are good

The powers are fallen

The powers can be redeemed

Being made to read Wink and Bosch at the same time was maybe a tad mean, but each of these writers' thoughts have been signficant in shaping my own.

As Walter Wink experiences the fulfilment of the promises that shaped his life, may we who remain play our own part on the ongoing redemptive work of Christ within, through and of the Powers.