Living in Wonder – Book Impressions

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Maybe the third time is the charm with this post, as I’ve started twice over the last couple of months, but never managed to get more than a couple of paragraphs into a review before getting pulled away by one thing or another. (Maybe, just maybe, my motivation for finishing it now is that there’s a different project in desperate need for attention, and I’m having a hard time working on it. No, never, right? *L*)

Honestly, this is a book that is really hard for me to review for a number of reasons. First off, I’ve been a subscriber to Rod Dreher’s Substack for nearly two years now (and please use my referral link if you’d like to as well), and in the space of that time, his readers really got to get an inside look at this book being created, from concept, to difficulties with it, to even voting on a cover design. Secondly, I’ve now met Rod on two occasions, which probably doesn’t make me an unbiased reviewer. Third, there’s a particular aspect of it that hardly feels like something different, probably in large part due to the fact that Rod and I are not just converts to Orthodox Christianity, but people who have now been in the Orthodox Church for a long time; me, 22 years, and he, 18, I think. In the book, he’s not pushing that everyone be an Orthodox Christian, but a there’s a lot that he brings up that draws on Orthodox Christian practice. For someone like me, it’s just become a way of life, right down to the philosophy that as much as there is to this world that is seen, there’s more that is unseen, and most of it is probably beyond what our minds can understand “logically”.

So let me back up here a bit. There a couple of major themes to “Living in Wonder” – in interviews, Rod has stated that he hates the word “enchantment” to describe what he’s trying to get at (10 minute mark), because people associate it with being shallow, like pixie dust in a Disney movie or something. However, “enchantment” does happen to be the opposite of “disenchantment”, which, he argues, is the way that we in the West have learned to see the world, more or less severing the connection between substance and spirit. It turns out, though that people aren’t designed to live like that, and as a result, lots of people are seeking something else, and finding it, and whether that “enchantment” is striving for God, or allowing one’s self to become enchanted by darker forces – this is really the question of our time.

The book goes into a lot of stories; stories of people who have found themselves in the presence of miracles, and those who have had experiences with what were probably demons. In a lot of cases, we’ll probably never know for sure. However, whereas the Christianity of my childhood would be highly dismissive of a lot of claims on both sides (weeping icons? Impossible!) there’s so much evidence that these “unexplainable” phenomena exist that it’s folly to pretend that they don’t. Furthermore, there are plenty of people who have no qualms about seeking out darker spirits, one ought to be aware of how that can affect a person.

A fair amount of the book does make that connection from the anecdotal to actual studies and research and the like, which ended up getting into modern issues such as dark enchantment through technology, and the ways people today – from kids to very, very powerful adults – are influenced by this.

The book continues on to talk about ways Christians can “re-enchant” their lives, and this is the part, in particular, where Rod draws on his experience of life as an Orthodox Christian for inspiration to do so. Some of it is as “simple” as really being mindful of what our attention is being drawn to – things of God or something lower. Some of it is allowing ourselves to be changed and molded by God and understand that there are some that do this so well that they do “miraculous” things on a regular basis. Near the end of the book, he talks about three men who he regards as “Prophets of the Real” insofar as they are talking to large numbers of people both in person and by means of the internet on different aspects of Christian “re-enchantment”. I’m not sure that I’d pick the same people, but it’s his book, not mine, and he makes the case there. 😉

I liked the book quite a bit, but it was kind of weird to be reading it for the first time, and feel like I’d read it before. No, I hadn’t been anywhere close there, but with being a daily reader of his, there were a lot of things that had been brought up by him that made it very familiar. I enjoy reading Rod a lot in large part because he is a writer whose faith influences his writing quite a bit, but doesn’t do it in a way where one feels like they’re being hit over the head with moralizing or a conversion effort or something. His thesis that “enchantment” is one of the up-and-coming issues of the day certainly is strong, and this book makes a very interesting and readable case for that.

For those of you who want to get a taste of the book, chapter one can be found here: https://www.book2look.com/book/9780310369134 .

I got my signed copy through Eighth Day Books in Wichita – it looks like they still have signed book plates to offer those who order through them still available here: https://www.eighthdaybooks.com/product/165310/Living-in-Wonder-Finding-Mystery-and-Meaning-in-a-Secular-World–With-bookplate-signed-by-Rod-Dreher-while-supplies-last (not an affiliate link)

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