Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God's Spoken World

This book is a favorite of mine. Wilson takes a perspective of the world that is less linear than the traditional apologetic. He attempts to paint pictures using only the seasons as a guide to understanding just how little we understand about our Creator. He handles evil, beauty, and tragedy with grace and truth.I recommend this book to anyone who is tired of hearing and reading the same predictable logical positing from theologians.

One of the most fascinating topics I studied during my time in college was synesthesia. Translated literally, this means "joined perception", and basically refers to a condition in which someone simultaneously perceives one sensory input with multiple senses. For instance, someone might hear the smell of fabric softener, or know exactly what the color blue tastes like.The first time I ever thought I might have some idea what this could be like was at a Blue Man Group show in Las Vegas. My senses were on overload to the point when I could barely tell where the boundaries were between sight, hearing, and touch. (This was by design of course; BMG aims -- and often succeeds -- at confusing the senses. They even have a song called "Synaestetic".) I loved it.Reading this book was sort of like that. As I read, it seemed that every one of my senses was firing at once. It looked, smelled, sounded, felt, AND tasted good.It did take me a little while to get into this book, however, but that's because I was trying to read it, rather than to experience it. Upon first reading, I felt like I was living inside the mind of someone who is WAY smarter than me. I took the writing style to be a stream-of-consciousness type prose, and I wasn't sure where Wilson was going.By about the end of the second chapter, though, I realized that the mistake was in my approach to the book. Trying to read it line-by-line was a bit like trying to enjoy a Rembrandt painting by staring at individual brush strokes. So I went back to the beginning, and began approaching Notes From the Tilt-a-Whirl as a piece of art.Wow, what a difference!It wasn't long before I began to truly appreciate what Wilson had accomplished with this book. Theologians often talk about two types of God's revelation: the specific (his Word) and the general (his World). Scores of great books have been written investigating God's Word. This makes sense. Written words can help make sense of God's written Word.But what about His World? Can words ever suffice to explore the depths of what God has revealed in Creation? Romans 1:19-20 tells us that God's "invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made." Men have wasted many words trying to parse out exactly what that means. Valiant apologetic efforts have been aimed at persuading those who "suppress the truth", but all too often they result in simply accusing the unbelievers of being fools. It may be true, but strangely, calling someone "fool" rarely wins the lost (much less an argument)!What N.D. Wilson has done, then, is simply brilliant. Rather than try to tell readers how God's attributes are made plain in nature, he shows us. As the subtitle says, he writes with "wide-eyed wonder" at the world around him. By pointing out how truly amazing many every day occurrences really are, he reminds us how rarely we take the opportunity to witness God's glory in the things that are made.Along the way, he winsomely interacts with the many philosophers who offer alternative explanations for life and the universe around us. Kant, Neitszche, Darwin, Hume, Rand... all leave the careful observer of the divine Artist's handiwork wanting, for none have offered anything so compelling as the Bible's own description of the origin and nature of things. Better than anything else I've ever read, this book truly makes this plain. The truth was there all along; I just needed help to see it.Wilson describes us as characters in a play, lines in a poem. We live do, after all, live in the greatest story ever told; one which the Poet himself entered as a fellow actor upon this very stage! I am grateful for this book, which has helped me to look with a renewed sense of wonder at God's self-revelation in the things that surround me all the time. May I never lose this wonder!

By its own admission, there is almost no need to classify this book. Is it about God's presence in this world? Yup. Is it about the beauty and pain in this world? Yup. Does it contain a letter by Hamlet, Prince of Denmark? Yes. Does it have a lot to say about ants and snowflakes? It most certainly does. This is, after all, a book about someone who believes he is on a tilt-a-whirl. A perfect, spinning orb of a tilt-a-whirl.N.D. Wilson's book was, for me, a deep breath of fresh air. I spend a lot of time with what some call `serious' books on philosophy, theology, history and so forth and I was drawn to the sense I got that this book doesn't take itself seriously, but simultaneously takes its subject matter seriously. It delivered. While the chapters will often take their own routs around the subject matter, they all lead you to the end of the book. Wilson isn't random in his "Notes," but surprising, often humorous, and sometimes quite moving.If I had to put the thesis of the book in a sentence it might be, "a hearty slap in the face to the problem of evil." Wilson knows his philosophers and theologians. He does not neglect the age-old arguments and points of views on `either side', but he does not take the strict philosophical tact to deal with this problem. He is interested in the story the world is telling, the roles we all play (and by "we all," I mean to include earwigs, mayflies, naked mole rats, and fat rabbits), and what God is up to in all of it. He asks, "How could an all-good, all-powerful God allow evil in the world? Or, from a slightly different angle: how could an all-good, all-powerful God allow David Hume in the world?" (pg. 78)Through his perspective on daily life and God in it, I found a deeply thoughtful reflection on what I would call relationship with God. His book inspired and encouraged me to take in more of the things around me from a different, God-saturated, point of view. When I got to the chapter on hell, the pastor and theologian within me was worried. It was wonderful.I think this is a great book for encouraging a meaningful and daily trust in the God who really is there, and happens to be here as well.

Unusual, fantastic, downright weird. But lovely, true and refreshing.I enjoyed this. N D Wilson is certainly unique but his book is intended to direct our attention to the greatness and glory of God. What an occupation!I’ve given 4 rather than 5 stars because I have don’t like the use of crude language. While I understand why the author deliberately expresses himself as he does, I still find it unnecessarily/gratuitously crude on a few occasions. I’d love to read it to the family but feel inhibited.

I loved this book. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that as I closed the last page, I wanted to start all over. For the moment, that's not an option - other texts are beckoning.It's beautifully written, in a kind of N.D. Wilsonesque way that I'm not sure would work as well elsewhere. It 'plays' with ideas and themes, moving seamlessly from one to another, and as it goes it gradually, quirkily, some might say eccentrically, makes the case for a world spoken into being by a God is who artist, poet, comedian...Wilson hyperlinks from Hamlet to Ants, to deciduous trees, to anecdotes about relatives, to Greek Myths in a way that always leaves you chewing over the residue of sentences. The emphasis is on the 'hyper', rather than the link. There's good theology here, but you won't find it tied up neatly in little, discrete, parcels - it's messy, exuberant, full of sparkle and life.This is for the person who would not, ordinarily, read a 'Christian' book, but it's also for those of us, longer in the tooth, who may actually have read a lot, and think we know it all. It does us all good at times to read things that leave us wondering, "Did he really say that?"My only criticism is that this is printed on horribly cheap paper - and I think it deserves rather better, together with leaf-prints annotated by the author's children.And I particularly liked Wilson's description of his daughter describing him as growing up to be "old and sparkly". We could do with a few more folks like that around us.

What a fabulous, joyous romp through creation and the things God has made. It brings in all sorts of philosophy, but never in a dry way. It talks about the reality of death, but not morbidly. A fabulous book, very different to the run of the mill kind. A delight to read.

This film presents a Christian, theistic, world-view. Everything around us is "miraculous". It is very thought-provoking. It is well-made. Its style is partciularly suited to young adults and mature teenagers - lots of fast sound-bites. It would make good viewing for a group that was interested in discussing it afterwards.

Very good book, recommend!