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Gall: Five Years of Unfettered Christian Exploration Somewhere Between Youth Group and the Rest of Life
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Product Description
In 1947, Ralph Ellison’s landmark "Invisible Man" showed the world what it’s like to be on the receiving end of smugly paternalistic, ultimately usury best intentions. Unable to see the person behind the need, benefactors and scheme-sellers alike treated the "invisible man" as a blank slate upon whom they could write their own legacies. He was a piece of artwork usurped and surreptitiously signed by people who needed a place, and a life, upon which to leave their mark for the comforting of their consciences.
If Ellison wrote about being "invisible," then "Gall" is the story of discovering the same truths as a member of the "blind" culture; the White, educated, affluent Evangelical culture fixated on uncritically exporting the bromides of its own addictions. The story follows one young man’s departure from a promising advertising career to follow his conception of God’s will through various theological and relational experiences over the course of five years spent in and around Denver in the mid 1990s. Each experience leads with a stolen claim to divine guidance. Each ends with the Truth shaking itself free from the dishonesty of the young man’s claims, and from the claims made by the "blind" culture he represents.
"Gall" is also the story of a young man growing up, and growing into a faith of his own. From crushing defeats, wrenching confession, paradigm-blowing grace, and finally a willingness to allow for life with fewer crisp answers, "Gall" speaks the voice of a younger population and its search for a faith whose DEscription more closely aligns with its PREscription. Explorations range from lust to drugs to conversion to praying in tongues. "Gall" looks at family, career, faith, ministry, love and an active pursuit of a redemption that seems to arrive only when it is allowed to arrive on its own terms. "Gall," as "Invisible Man," seeks to tell the truth, not sell a truth, and it rips open more questions than it sews up. It’s the often-painful story of a blind young man stumbling through important terrain that many believers refuse to acknowledge.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1268624 in Books
- Published on: 2005-10-14
- Released on: 2005-10-14
- Original language: English
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
Look, if this whole deal with God is at all real, it has to do better than drone on in hypothetical and scholastic debates. It has to apply to premarital nudity, dreams of personal glory, colossal lapses in judgment, family dysfunctions, battles with addiction, and frustration with fools. It must have something to say about tenacity, idolatry, heroes, love, sunsets, demons, prayer, miracles, worms, rivers and hard-won orgasm. Tell me about that stuff. Admit that you’ve somehow come to believe that the sin of the world can hold a candle to the wretchedness of your own heart. Take on questions that are bigger than your answers. Fight to let pain serve its purpose. Let grace shine through if it’s so real and so great and so worth living for. Show me a Jesus who gives a shit about the world I inhabit, and I’ll keep reading.
petegall.com
About the Author
Pete Gall
Customer Reviews
gall (n.): outrageous insolence
pete's book was given to me at the end of the 2005, after nearly a year of personal-spiritual-desert-searching time (which still continues today). early in 2005, a friend gave me a copy of Blue Like Jazz that I promptly put on the shelf and didn't read because I didn't really like this "friend" and didn't trust his taste in books, especially God ones. but one day when I was desperate for immediate reading material (ok, I was dealing with a bout of constipation) I began reading it and it truly spurred me on to read anything I could get my hands on that could confirm some of the spiritual questions I was wrestling with. by the time I got Gall, I had read maybe 12 books that relate to a new kind of Christianity, comfortable with questions, unshackled to traditional religious understanding, free from crippling dogma. but in some ways, his book was like a series of daggers to my heart.
Gall offers a fresh approach, even in the midst of all the similarly themed books I've read this year. I was really challenged in my own faith and how I act it out by the stories pete tells. I was convicted by the fact that pete actually has done the stuff of ministry. he's rolled up his sleeves and willingly taken on the stink and unpleasantness of the marginalized in our society. while the rest of us talk about how we should do it, pete was out there doing it. he's one of the few people I know of that can actually say with any authority what the service component of faith is like. dagger #1.
pete's honesty with himself, his motives, and his true desires is like an unwanted mirror. he'll be telling a story about how he became a friend to a group of mentally challenged grown men, spending time with them, changing soiled underwear for them, teaching them how to cook simple dinners... and you're thinking, wow, what a guy. he really was jesus to these people. God must be so proud. then all of a sudden, he's talking about what he was really thinking and feeling at that time... lust for a female co-worker, intentions to snag food from the men's refrigerator, and you realize he's human. he just has the cojones to tell the truth about it. dagger #2.
pete's relationship with his parents, though troubled and difficult at times, was so honest it made my heart ache. you can see how they, as his parents, formed the complex and inspirational faith that pete has. his dad is a real jerk sometimes, his mom comes off as too passive sometimes, but by the end, you realize what awesome people they are, despite their faults. what more would I hope someone would say of me? I envied pete's relationship with his folks, especially the honesty. to have completely different opinions from one's parents on a subject, but be able to passionately debate it together, and be heard... that is an incredible gift. dagger #3.
the chapter on aidan. daggers #4 through #10.
Gall has given me tons to think about and pray about. it's likely to be a book I'll need to reread through the years, as my journey progresses. I think it has that kind of a timeless quality to it, where it will be meaningful for a long time to come. it's good to know I'm not alone on this journey to find a deeper, more meaningful and more relevant faith. and with pete gall, I'm in good company.
a messy dreamer
Pete Gall's vulnerability and startling honesty are quite messy and offbeat (He will ruffle your feathers). But more importantly, Gall paints a beautiful mural of one man's passionate faith, a mural that will challenge all of our black and white sketches. The most precious parts of this book are the times when Gall steps aside and allows God to reveal Himself as a creative, patient, emotional, hands-on Dreamer. Don't expect a feel-good, peachy book, but do expect God-the Dreamer-to show up between Pete's messy lines.
Gall combines J.D. Salinger's blunt self-awareness, Mike Yaconelli's (Messy Spirituality, Dangerous Wonder) madness, and Brennan Manning's (Ragamuffin Gospel, Ruthless Trust) sincere, curious descriptions of faith.
Out On the Edge
I feel like I know Pete. What a tremendous gift this book is - out on the edge of a tough, revealing, passionate, naked and brutally honest struggle with Christianity in our times. It is not a safe read - so if you are challenged by this sort of thing, be warned. There are no pulled punches. Gall takes the profane moments out of real life episodes - sometimes tragic, someimes exhilarating, sometimes mundane - and intersperses them with stunning spiritual insights. His book stands aside Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller, Jesus in the Margins by Rick McKinley and Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell as a refreshingly honest look at the struggles many go through as they experience this thing called faith.
