there's something to be said for sunday

There's something to be said for Sunday. For hot cups of coffee, plates of scrambled eggs, and the crinkle of the fat morsel of the Sunday New York Times. For waking up early to the muffled sounds of a world outside the door and choosing to avoid it for a little while. For knowing that there are no obligations today, just to float through peacefully in preparation for the week to begin tomorrow.

I woke up this morning to a sound that I was severely hoping to not hear again: a mouse scratching frantically inside the live trap it wandered into sometime last night. This is the third mouse, in less than twenty four hours, that has been relocated from my kitchen to greener pastures. After returning from releasing the little bugger to join its kin, I shuffled back up the sidewalk, grabbing the familiar blue plastic bag from my porch on my way in. The blue plastic bag loaded down with the weight of the world inside of it. Piles and piles of words are contained within it, describing the state of the world as it is on November 22, 2009. Or, at least, highlights and lowlights of the world as it is. First order of business before diving into my portal to the world at large, is COFFEE. While it brews, I take the time to shower, washing off the grime of yesterday and replacing my pajamas with similarly comfortable sweat pants. Once coffee is in the mug, I am back to bed, pages of newspaper spread around me. This is a Sunday morning.

I stand in solidarity with the other members of the Brown family. I know that 270 miles down the highway, the Sunday morning ritual is also occuring right now. The same elements are involved: coffee and New York Times. This is the way it has been in the Brown household for as long as I can remember learning how to read. Every Sunday I would be woken up to the sound of NPR on the radio (although, way back in the day it was Ravi Zacharias' sermons), the smell of coffee and scrambled eggs, and upon emerging from the cocoon of my bed, the sight of a kitchen table covered in newspaper. It used to be uneventful. My dad with the front page, me with the comics, my sister with a different book, and my brother still in bed. As we started to grow up, there would be a need for more pots of coffee and a peaceful strategy of newspaper distribution. Next week when I'm home for Thanksgiving, there will be a bartering of newspaper sections: "I call the front page!" "Trade you Week in Review for the Magazine?"--until we all have a section or two we can live with. There won't be much talking, just the absorption of tiny print into our already cluttered brains. Perhaps, there will be the occasional "huh" or "wow", but mostly just the rustling of paper against paper. Until then, I will stay in my bed with my coffee and paper and wallow in the glory of having it all to myself--knowing that the feeling is shared across the state border.

There is something to be said for Sunday.

Wormwood is back!

I always like to believe that the Browns, the ones who have descended from Ralph and Polly (my grandparents), are the cream of the crop. I often tell people, that I am growing up in the shadow of my rather (in)famous relatives. There is a lot to live up to in light of all of the accomplishments that have been tallied up thus far. I mean this in the most positive of ways; I am proud to be a Brown, and proud to have such a large shadow to rest under. Here are some examples of the shadow of which I speak: Grandma, father, uncles, sister, and cousins are all published authors, uncles own a publishing firm and are professors of different faculties, a Brown family legacy exists at Gordon Seminary, and my siblings and cousins are all up and coming scholars of various sorts. We have a very large tendency of making unforgettable imprints on the world wherever we may be.

This, of course, is all a build up of announcement of my Uncle Tom's newest book. The following is a synopsis/review/bio of the author. Enjoy!

P.S. I am shamelessly making a plug for you to buy it and support the Brown Legacy! More information and an opportunity to purchase the book can be found at www.wormwoodarchive.com

Times have changed, and so has the art of temptation.

What happens when a demon adopts the best in modern management techniques?

The Wormwood Archive records the temptation of an American church by a demon who has discovered the attraction of results based management, sophisticated marketing methods, and Performance Driven Worship. This book offers a sharp and witty critique of contemporary church growth strategies and their impact on local churches. Neither Church leaders driven by zeal and ambition nor their wounded and anger blinded opponents can escape from Wormwood's web of temptation or from Brown's scrutiny. The Wormwood Archive offers readers an accounting of the high price paid by churches that sacrifice their spiritual heritage at the altar of growth and calls both church leaders and their critics to repent, to reconcile and together to treasure their common spiritual roots.

What readers are saying:

The Wormwood Archive is a deeply revealing book about the mega-church movement, congregational conflict, and spiritual warfare. With ironic humor, startling insight, and penetrating analysis, T. G. Brown skillfully connects the dots to explain troubling trends in American evangelicalism: “Performance Driven Worship,” “Uniformity over Unity,” idolization of youth culture, abandonment of pastoral care, focus on appearance, “edgy” worship, and a pervasive entertainment motif. In the tradition of C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, Wormwood examines the modern church from the perspective of a bureaucratic demon assigned to destroy a large community church. Full of delightful turns of phrase, Wormwood is a satirical, yet thoughtful and gentle, rebuke. Brown does not merely essay a masterful critique of the modern marketing methods and secular culture infiltrating American churches; he scripts a spiritual-psychological diary of how the consuming fires of our all-too-common church quarrels and worship wars are ultimately fanned by the Accuser and his underlings. Wormwoodis unusual in its refusal to (dare I say?) demonize anyone, its well-rounded and helpful anatomy of congregational conflict, and its ultimate call for repentance and reconciliation. --Nicholas DiFonzo, author of The Watercooler Effect: A Psychologist Explores the Extraordinary Power of Rumors

T.G. Brown teaches at the University of Rochester and holds degrees from Gordon College and the University of Rochester. Brown was born and spent his childhood in Pakistan where his parents were missionaries. Since 1981 he and his wife have lived in upstate New York where he enjoys teaching, preaching, canoeing and fly fishing. The Wormwood Archive is his first nonscientific publication.