Low-Back, Ladder-Back, Cane-Bottom Chair
Biblical Meditations
Foreword by Walter Brueggemann
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
128 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 0.26 in
- Paperback
- 9781625643865
- Published: December 2013
$21.00 / £19.00 / AU$27.00
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Biblical texts are the springboards for proclaiming the Good news. For Rev. James S. Lowry, these springboards lead to recollections from life and ministry that make the Gospel come alive in a special way. Memories of two very different creches shed light on Mary's Magnificant; the funeral of dissolute ne'er-do-well Tex Malone provides a surprising context for that most famous of verses, John 3:16; a misspelled word becomes a fountain of grace for an entire congregation; and the low-back, ladder-back, cane-bottom chair with the legs cut off just so to accommodate Lowry's diminutive childhood caregiver, Bessie Grier, calls forth the God who guarded that daughter of slaves and who now guards the adult Lowry as he prepares to face each day.
James S. Lowry is a retired pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA). His last installed pastorate was the Idlewild Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He lives with his wife, Martha Nichols, on a small farm near Great Falls, South Carolina. His previous books include Biblical Meditations (1999) and Prayers for the Lord's Day: Hope for the Exiles (2002).
''Lowry has a keen sense for the right word at the right place in the sentence, a right placing that weaves midst the listeners a place of truth, a summons to justice, an offer of love, a risk of honesty, and a wonder of healing.''
--from the Foreword by Walter Brueggemann
''Jim Lowry helps us to hear our story walking beside the biblical story so that we listen to the two of them wrestle, argue, fight with, and even embrace one another. Then the biblical story is not a relic of the past, but living and present.''
--Donald Davis, storyteller
''Jim Lowry's Low-Back, Ladder-Back, Cane-Bottom Chair is a banquet of lyric preaching that will surprise, delight, and even heal your soul. Lowry is a master maggid (storyteller) in the finest tradition of classical Jewish midrash. His teaching is a rich blend of literary imagination and good spiritual cousel.''
--Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, author of Invisible Lines of Connection and Eyes Remade for Wonder.