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Excellent set of essays, with such incredibly wide varying experiences. From people who never wanted kids to those who tried and tried, to those who regretted terminations to those who vehemently didn’t. Hope and grief and miscarriages and neices and nephews and privilege and struggle and joy and despair. Never assume anything.

I find his writing when peppered with anecdotes, a little irritating, because I guess the anecdotes feel dated, or irrelevant - and his writing, when mimicking his preaching, has an odd rhythm to it. (It’s wild to remember when his videos were popular in the churches I went to) But overall a good read, and the exhortation to consider first most, “why did people write it down”, and then, “why has it endured?” Is really valuable; opening up opportunity to be enriched by parts of scripture I would ordinarily skip over.

Listened on audiobook; I am not sure if I would have been able to plough through the academic density of it otherwise. It’s almost like a fish describing water- asking why, really, are we holding onto history so tightly from the 1800s? albeit from the heart of where it may arguably be at its most dense, his critique of colonial monuments, in all its different forms, is even more relevant for New Zealand I think. I finished the book while walking through the heart of Christchurch- a city that has literally had to determine which monuments we will let fall. The statue of cook has a faded Red Cross marked over him; while nearby Maori Pō commemorate Kai tahu heroes… I loved this book. I loved its challenge and it’s begging for us to remember how we remember, and the violence of neutrality. So I guess, what now, what next?