Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them | John Ortberg

Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them | John Ortberg | A book to read and purchase for your best friends

books:

Everybody's Normal...

	Everybody's Normal Till You Get to Know Them John Ortberg Zondervan, 2003 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Wonderful Analysis of Porcupine's Dilemma and Relationships

In this classic book the author Ortberg zooms on the things that make community tick. He elaborates in the chapter `Porcupine's Dilemma' "Community is the place God made us for. Community is the place where God meets us. Here is the rub : How to get close without getting hurt? How do you pursue this beautiful dream of community with actual, real-life people? Weird, not-normal, as-is, dysfunctional real life people? Your friends, colleagues, your children, your parents? Can it really happen?

The Hebrew prophets had a word for connectedness of all things : shalom - the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight. The connectedness has also been called `reciprocal rootedness'.

The North American Common Porcupine is a member of the rodent family that has around 30,000 quills attached to his body. Each quill can be driven into an enemy, and the enemy's body heat will cause the microscopic barb to expand and become more firmly embedded. The wounds can fester; the more dangerous ones, affecting vital organs, can be fatal.

Ortberg analyzes the Porcupine's Dilemma : How do you get close without getting hurt? This is our dilemma too. Every one carries our own little arsenal. Our barbs have names like rejection, condemnation, resentment, arrogance, selfishness, envy, contempt. Some people hide them better then others, but get close enough and you will find out they are there. We, too, learn to survive through a combination of withdrawal and attack. We, too, find ourselves hurting (and being hurt by) those we long to be closest to. We try to figure out how to get close without getting hurt. We wonder if there is not a softer, less-barbed creature out there - a mink or an otter, perhaps. We can usually think of a number of particularly prickly porcupines in our lives. But the problem is not just them. I am somebody's porcupine. So are you.

This golden book is relevant to the current scenarios in most of the world. What we see in drive-by shootings and suicide bombings is only the ultimate working out of anger that is in all of our hearts. We get hurt and we want to hurt back. Little jihads (attacks) get fought every day between people who work together in the same office, between husband and wife, between parent and child. Hafrada is a word for separation and withdrawal. The Wall of the West Bank, The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain are expressions of the same impulse that causes all of us to withdraw and withhold ourselves. Sometimes the wall is a newspaper at a breakfast table that expresses and emotional distance that cannot be bridged.

Jihad and hafrada. Attack and withdrawal. These are the two essential forms of relational sin. We assault others when we act against what is good for them. This is true even if it happens with their consent - to give a whiskey to an alcoholic, for example. We withdraw from someone when we regard their well being as a matter of indifference to us. Attack and withdrawal are practiced by every human being on earth, and they damage every marriage and family and workplace and church. All our relational mismanagement is really a variation on these two tendencies of the fallen human heart. When we feel threatened, we want to hurt others or hide from them. We, too, head for a tree or stick out for quills. But there is a better way. Things do not have to be that way.

Miracle of miracles : Relationship does happen - even for porcupines. They learn to keep their barbs to themselves. They also figure out how to get long enough to make sure that another generation will come along. Males and females may remain together for some days before mating. They may touch paws and even walk on their hind feet in the so-called `dance of the porcupines.' It turns out there really is an answer to the ancient question, how do porcupines make love? They pull in their quills and learn to dance.

Hope you enjoyed the vivid analysis of the miracles called relationship in the light of Porcupine's dilemma presented by Ortberg. This chapter alone is sufficient for awarding a full five star rating for this book. It deserves thoughtful reading by all communities.

for more information click here

A book to read and purchase for your best friends

This book uses a conversational style to convey deep truths about relationships. Although it's not wordy or high-brow, it makes solid points and is a book I immediately purchased for a number of my closest friends, even before I'd finished it. Highly recommended.

Very Informative

This is a great book if you are trying to learn how to interact in a Community of Christians.

Stating the Obvious

Not worthy of the author of "If you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat". I've been very happy with "If you want to walk on water..."; this is just "OK". It states the obvious- that people all have quirks, faults, etc. and that we all tend to gloss over our own faults and be too judgemental when it comes to others.

The opposite of shallow or superficial isn't a kind of unbridled, foolish "openness" that does nothing to build up, edify, and focus on Christ. I think the author is just a little bit the victim of his own generation's self-help, co-dependent, therapy culture in this regard.

Rather, as the word says- we are to have a sober assessment of ourselves, humbling ourselves in the sight of men, and let God be the judge of others and our avenger. We are to focus on ourselves. You can make a certain argument for "confessing our sins one to another" and for accountability when needed, but this book talks about-- in my opinion-- talking TOO much.

I reject the idea that anything less than a talk-show style tell all with others is shallow. I also assert that co-dependency is equally unhealhty-- and that we must carefully (again, as the Word tells us) assess the VALUE to the hearer of what we have to say. In short- people DO NOT need to know it all, nor should they tell all.

The danger of this kind of "open, caring, sharing with the community" type business is worse than shallow-- it's the wallow. I've had personal experience with this kind of thing, and it actually impedes growth. You can be real without revealing all.

In fact, I think we're OBLIGATED to stuff some things and NOT share. We are to be RENEWED through the transforming of our mind; forgetting those things which are behind, running the race, eyes on the prize; thinking only on those things which are true, good, speaking words edifying to the hearer; speech seasoned with salt, risen with Christ and thinking on those things which are above-- not wallowing in our past, sharing our shames with others, and so on. In that respect, the book misses the point.

for more information click here

Not as profound as I had expected...

I'll start by saying that I'm a fan of John Ortberg. I've heard him speak on several occasions, and I think that he has a lot of good stuff to say. I've read articles that he's written, and they have deeply impacted me.

Within that context, this was my first dive into Ortberg's books, and I listened to the unabridged audiotape version. Quite frankly, I was disappointed. Part of that disappointment might be unfairly high expectations, so I'll admit that on the front end. In any case, I'm not sure that this book will have any significant impact on my life (which is the reason why I read or listen to books).

To be fair, Ortberg does make a compelling case to support the various points sprinkled throughout each chapter. He is a great storyteller, so I really enjoyed listening to some of those stories. He makes a lot of truth claims that are hard to deny: all people are sinful and therefore difficult to endure sometimes; we must tell the truth if we are to live in real Christian community; accountability is another hallmark of living together as Christ called us.

And I really appreciate the fact that Ortberg is willing to utilize some early church fathers as resources, refusing to fall prey to the common, modern Christian idea that nothing profound or useful has been written more than twenty years ago.

I suppose my biggest beef with "Everybody's Normal..." is that it all seemed like I had heard it before. I was never struck with, "Wow, I've never thought of it that way before." Instead, I was frequently thinking, "Yup, that makes sense."

At the end of the day, this isn't a bad book. I might even recommend it for small groups that want to study how to interact appropriately together in Christian community. However, I had hoped for more.

for more information click here

reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7

products you might be interested in