Product Description

"White china" is Molly Wolf’s personal shorthand for the kind of religious language and ideas that often seem abstract and daunting. Those of us who don’t know how to break the code of words like hermeneutics are left to struggle in a landscape of abstraction and purity, intimidated and uncomfortable with our ability to handle them. We might mispronounce the words or use them wrongly, and then what would people think of us? They’re pure like white china; we might drop and break them or get them dirty. And they certainly aren’t something we can consume–who can eat china?  In this beautifully written collection, Molly Wolf serves up her unique brand of what she calls God-Talk. She takes the language of Christian faith and religion, sets it in the context of her keen observations of everyday experience, and unpacks it, opening it up to make it real and close up and important. Revel in Wolf’s juicy metaphors and rejoice in the fact that she serves up a feast for all those who hunger to eat.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1289843 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Although she confesses that in her middle age she finds that "virtually everything that is spiritually right is messy," Wolf, a Web columnist living in Ontario, Canada, writes about spiritual things with disarming simplicity. Her pithy essays begin with ordinary objects or events, and gently grow to include a spiritual musing or discovery. A disgruntlement over winter evolves into a discussion on God and the natural order of things. Mulling over her cat, Maggie, causes her to think about grace, while a trip to the supermarket spawns a few pages on children and poverty. Like a quality box of chocolates, you can dip in anywhere and come away with something worthwhile to enjoy or chew over. While Wolf, a Christian, is careful to say she does not find all belief systems equally good, she suggests Christianity, Judaism, Islam and other faiths are best evaluated using this rule: "By their fruits you shall know them." Her thoughtful essays are rich in description (a ladybug has a "burnished, richly red-brown spotted carapace"), and often humorous. Although Wolf doesn't shy away from sharing her positions on everything from the war in Iraq to homosexuality, her tone avoids becoming strident. "All I can do is to show you how I struggle with belief... maybe that will keep you company in your own struggles." Wolf is a compassionate companion for any spiritual journey. (Apr.)
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Review
"...an ideal read to start the day...a book you'll want to lend to a friend..." (www.christianbookshops.org.uk, 19th August 2005)

“…an ideal read to start the day…a book you’ll want to lend to a friend…” (www.christianbookshops.org.uk, 19^th August 2005)

Review
“The book you have in your hand, White China, is a compilation of pieces of Molly Wolf. One normally says that pieces are by an author; but I mean what I say. These are pieces of Molly Wolf that are as fearlessly presented and as lacking in self-protection as is the latter half of her name. No one is blocked from entering here, no one is going to be conned, and no one need hold up his or her guard while inside these pages. This is a conversation with Molly played out by the rules of Wolf." --from the Foreword by Phyllis Tickle

"Molly Wolf gives us down-to-earth, poignant, and often very funny meditations on the surprise and delight and struggle of everyday life. Her close observations of the natural world, her reflections on what it means to be human and what God might mean to humans, and her ability to illuminate the dark and the light will give any reader daily, life-giving bread." --Nora Gallagher, author, Things Seen and Unseen and Practicing Resurrection, and The Shape of Things to Come

Customer Reviews

White China, Finding the Divine in the Everyday, Molly Wolf, Jossey-Bass, ISBN 0-7879-6580-4, pp. 211.
White China is Molly Wolf's personal short hand for God-Talk. In multiple, short essays she unpacks the presence of God in our daily lives in everyday concepts and terms. She struggles with tough issues such as "where is the biblical God who always answers prayer, who punishes the wicked and comforts the afflicted and rewards the good?" She does not believe for a moments that God wills suffering. Her response is that this is a world still subject to the three great necessary wild cards of biology, physics and human free will. She sees God working through all this when we break through our constraints of fear, prejudice or the need to control. She tells us how God's grace is so deeply unjust that sinners never get what they deserve. Thank God. At the same time God does not put a particularly high value on comfort. Everything that is spiritually right is messy, and virtually everything that is extremely neat and orderly probably hasn't been kicked hard enough yet to show how messy it really is. God can look terribly two-faced at times. But this isn't God's problem. It's our perception, which is clouded by our own confusion to keep love for ourselves. We load our own issues, baggage, and confusion onto God and then complain that God has a problem. I highly recommend these well written essays about life and God in easily understood, every day language.

Mud and Mercy
In this book of short essays, Molly Wolf takes us on a faith journey through the seemingly ordinary events, places and experiences of life. She is able to see under and beyond the ordinariness, to glimpse the extraordinary in a frog, a failure or ferry ride. It is a journey refreshingly free of dogma (although a cat plays a starring role). Her writing neither talks down nor dumbs down; she walks with her readers and does so with intimacy and grace. The book moved me to to laughter, tears, frequent nods of understanding and agreement -- and more than once it shook my soul to the core.

This is a book best read slowly, each essay rolled around in the heart and mind as one would taste a fine wine. It seems especially at home on the bedside table.

Seeing the sacred in the everyday
Some people would look at something and just see what is there. Molly Wolf has a way of seeing something and finding things behind and beyond it, things that speak of and to faith as it really is, full of bumps, bruises, dry spells and triumphs. From the first essay, "One Loud, Heroic Frog" to the last in the collection, "Kyrie Eleison (2)", each one offers an opportunity and an unspoken invitation to stop and look about, seeing God and grace in everyday things that we might just overlook.

"White China" is a continuation of Wolf's journey through life and faith. If you're looking for dogma, rules or "Do this and everything will be fine," this isn't the book for you. But if you're looking for one woman's experience that can serve as a window to a new way of seeing and experiencing faith, order this one now.