Danielle Shroyer

Here’s something crazy for your Friday afternoon. My hubbie told me about this article and I seriously thought he was kidding at first. But apparently, it’s true. From NPR:

Michigan State University surveyed more than 700 employers seeking to hire recent college graduates. Nearly one-third said parents had submitted resumes on their child’s behalf, some without even informing the child. One-quarter reported hearing from parents urging the employer to hire their son or daughter for a position. Four percent of respondents reported that a parent actually showed up for the candidate’s job interview.

In case that didn’t sink in: FOUR PERCENT of parents WENT TO THE INTERVIEW–the ADULT JOB INTERVIEW–with their child. As in, they got dressed and accompanied their 20+ year old to an office building and proceeded to sit across the desk from a potential employer and next to their grown adult child.

The study did not say whether the parents in this scenario answered the interview questions, but I can just imagine they may have added an extra tidbit or two at the end of each sentence.

I’m beyond baffled.

Have a good weekend!

Look, I know this is not about theology, or Moltmann, or the church, or even parenting. So feel free to abstain from reading my rant-y post.

On Friday, I read The Hunger Games on the flight home. On Saturday, I bought the next two books in the series and finished them over the weekend. Clearly, I found the story compelling. And certainly, I appreciated the escape into a different kind of world…even if that world was confronting all the same problems that haunt us here (power, violence) in ways that were often grotesque. Maybe another day I’ll blab on about what I thought about the actual content of The Hunger Games. However I have a much bigger concern that could not help but creep up over and over as I read these pages: why is teen fiction worse than children’s fiction? How can that possibly be?!

If you don’t believe me, I submit the following:

Exhibit A: Teen fiction often does not use complete sentences. Do you have any idea how many choppy, weird phrases and words are littered on every page? It’s like a grammatical bomb hit it, and pieces lay all over the place, splayed out here and there. I seriously cannot understand why the authors cannot bring a few of these sad little fragments together by using perfectly nice things called conjunctions, or commas, or semicolons. I honestly had to read a few paragraphs over again because the grammar made such little sense.

I will spare you a rant about how Twitter and blogs and text messaging is ruining our ability to communicate in complete sentences. However, I am TERRIFIED that it’s also ruining our ability to THINK in complete sentences.

Exhibit B: I honestly think the characters in teen fiction are far less nuanced and complex. I think this is almost exclusively because the authors, rather than showing you something about the character through actions or dialogue, just flat out TELL you what the character is thinking. This may be the most jarring thing of all, this straightforward, knock-you-over-with-my-authorial-intent sort of style. It’s the difference between sitting down to dinner with someone and inferring thoughts about him/her based on the flow of the evening and sitting down to dinner with someone who just tells you who they are, straight and without break, all the way through dessert.

I realized that I could skim The Hunger Games, because the words didn’t really matter that much. I was using the words as a means to an end, to get to the next plot twist and find out what happened to Peeta. There was no savoring, or paying attention. You didn’t need to feel the cadence of the thing. You just needed to know what happened next. Maybe this is why sometimes these books are improved upon in movie form (which is never, ever the case for good literature, in my estimation). At least you see a sideways glance or sense a mood when you watch it on screen. The book practically barks military orders of action sequences at you.

In contrast, the children’s books I’ve read this year (The Invention of Hugo Cabret, The Mysterious Benedict Society) are well written. The stories are rich and the characters are three dimensional. I did not feel, as a reader, beaten over the head with the author’s intent. The world that was created was more full and whole and lyrical.

So why is it, when it would seem to make good common sense for books to become more complex as the reader gets more mature, do we see such hackneyed, flat and prosaic teen literature? Well, clearly they sell just fine. (I mean, honestly, Stephenie Meyer would likely fail English class in college but she’s made millions…as an AUTHOR.) And obviously, even adults are willing to read them. But when I think about my ten year old graduating up from Hugo and Harry Potter to this brand of shove-in-your-face, grammatically choppy literature, I’d just as soon convince her to stick with the classics. Later, when she’s old enough to know how to spot truly good literature, she can take a foray into The Hunger Games arena for kicks. But Lord, let’s not send our teens there without giving them a good rule of thumb for judging a book: if you’re reading it to enjoy the story and the way the story is told, it’s literature. If you’re reading it not for the words itself but for the basic plot, it’s teen fiction, and should be consumed sparingly.

(This post is part of a Patheos Book Club roundtable review.)

Simplicity and frugality become all the rage in a recession. In the last year, the cultural landscape has exploded with magazine articles and blog posts boasting how-to articles on making (and keeping) a budget, the secret to grocery coupon shopping, and fifteen free activities to try next weekend. For a nation that has forgotten—or worse, never learned—how to save, these tips and tricks are much needed…even if they are for many people too little, too late. Enter Adam Hamilton’s book Enough, released in 2009 and now expanded and re-released this year. Hamilton’s book also includes common sense suggestions on how to spend, share and save, but they’re placed within a theological argument for simplicity and generosity. In his book, readers get not only the how, but also the why.

I hope I don’t sound too pessimistic when I say that without the why, without a true and clear look at how we structure our lives and how we approach what we do with what we have, this temporary fad of cutting out our cable subscription and eating in more often isn’t going to last. As soon as the economy picks back up, we’ll land up right where we were before, with problems Hamilton references such as affluenza and “credit-itis.” Because the truth of the matter is, at its heart this book shouldn’t be read because we’re in a recession. It should be read because as Christians, it is our responsibility and joy to be mindful about what we do with what we have.

If you have a friend who is beginning to think about his/her relationship to money and stuff and what that means for the practice of faith, this is a near perfect starting point. Hamilton describes the problem and addresses a number of practical (and feasible) solutions that portray what has been a consistent Christian ethic of simplicity and generosity. The feasibility aspect is important, too; Hamilton doesn’t demand readers to get rid of their cars or take up vows of poverty. He’s realistic about where most readers find themselves.

If you’ve been around the simplicity conversation for a while, take note this is definitely an introductory book. I’d also mention this does seem to be a book geared toward the middle class or upper-middle class. As the title inadvertently suggests, it’s for people who have enough. Those who struggle to pay the bills may find Hamilton’s anecdotes about convincing himself not to get an iPhone or learning a lesson after buying a PlayStation that doesn’t get used off-putting, to say the least. But for those who situate themselves where Hamilton resides- in a middle class America that is slowly weaning itself off one massive money binge- Enough may be just the remedy.

Attention those of you who live in the Dallas area: this Sunday, Mark Scandrette will be leading our Journey gathering!  And YES, I KNOW this is Super Bowl Sunday, but guess what: 1) This is what DVRs are for and 2) the game lasts so long that you can come and still have hours to spend at a Super Bowl party.

So here is what you need to do. Come to Journey at 4:15 for a book signing reception. Bring money to buy a book, chat with Mark, and have some wine and cheese. Then, stay for the gathering, which will begin promptly at 5pm and hear Mark share with us about his book Practicing the Way of Jesus. We’ll end the evening by sharing communion together. And for those of you who don’t care about the Super Bowl (me), you can come out with us for dinner afterward, too. The rest of you can go along to your Super Bowl parties with approximately seventy more hours of game time to go.

WHAT I’M SAYING IS YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO, PEOPLE.

If you’ve never heard Mark, this is a great opportunity to spend some time with him and hear his unique and helpful perspectives on what it means to follow Jesus. So spread the news…and see you Sunday!