Book/Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl

Front Cover

Opening Lines

What excuses can I possibly make for this book? Alcohol was not directly involved. I do not (to my knowledge) have a diseased brain. I've never used drugs. But that's not entirely true. Spring is a drug to me. So is Christmas. Love, poetry, wind, smells, lightning, children, ants, very small beetles all drugs in their own way. It's not my fault. Those things made me write this book. Those things and a few others, both sweet and sour.

Contents

Preface

Welcome

Tickets, Please

Breathing Characters

Talking Rocks

Winter Hiatus: Breaking Teeth

Unwomb the World

The Problem of Evil and the Nonexistence of Shakespeare: A Paper by Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Spring Hiatus: Butterfly Lies

Your Mother Was a Lizard

The Problem of Kittens: Cuteness and Beauty

Summer Hiatus: Sand Castles

Hell: The Final Conversation

The Story

Gratitude

Summary

N.D. Wilson's nonfiction books are wonderful examples of Christian belief and practice (worldview) transposed into different genres. Every time I read them, they go back on the re-read list.

"Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl focuses on a way of seeing. With this book [Death by Living], the focus is on a way of living, a way of receiving life."

This book, “Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl” is a way of seeing the world. It’s a statement of faith. A mosaic of propositions and stories about the world God has made.

His other non-fiction book, “Death by Living” is a way of living in the world. It’s a practical theology. An invitation to receive God’s gifts and embrace them with courageous faith and fierce joy.

Both are breathtaking expressions of beauty and truth. We need more theology written in genres like this.

Here is the publisher's summary:

A cinematic treatment of worldview: 60 Minutes meets "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

What is this world? What kind of place is it? The round kind. The spinning kind. The moist kind. The inhabited kind. The kind with flamingos (real and artificial). The kind where water in the sky turns into beautifully symmetrical crystal flakes sculpted by artists unable to stop themselves (in both design and quantity). The kind of place with tiny, powerfully jawed mites assigned to the carpets to eat my dead skin as it flakes off. The kind with people who kill and people who love and people who do both. This world is beautiful but badly broken.

I love it as it is, because it is a story, and it isn’t stuck in one place. It is full of conflict and darkness like every good story, a world of surprises and questions to explore. And there’s someone behind it; there are uncomfortable answers to the hows and whys and whats. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Through Him were all things made...

Adversaria

Here (3:06–4:30) the author explains the circumstances that led him to write this unusual statement of faith.

New edition here with an added afterword by the author.