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Praise for How I Survived Multiple Sclerosis

New Release. Available Now.

 

Reviews: Through Dark Places

Reader response

Very interesting, I really liked the chapter "From Darkness into Light" because I work with kids that are where Tom was as a youth. I would like to know more about when Tom went to Washington State. Did he have someone he knew there? Where did he stay? How did he get started over again?That would be helpful to know because so many of the kids I work with feel there is no hope. Because they will go back home and, within just a matter of time, they will be in trouble again. I read parts of that story to the boys there on Christmas day because I wanted to give them hope. The questions they had were about where they would go to start over. Thank you.

- Gary Baker Edgerton, MN

 

Reviews: Talking with God

 

By Ann Byle | The Grand Rapids Press

Henry Baron has lots to talk about with God. For years, he held his discussions in the pages of the Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church newsletter. He wrote a monthly column, often using it to talk with God about his, the church’s and others’ concerns.

Now, his conversations recorded over 30 years are available in Baron’s new book, Talking with God: Prayers, meditations & conversations for God-seekers.

“The columns were my attempt to verbalize, as honestly as I could, the questions a God-seeker has,” said Baron, professor of English emeritus at Calvin College. “I tried to go inside the perplexing, exhilarating things that make up life’s moments.”

Baron, 76, began thinking about creating a book last summer. He started by finding themes throughout his 30 years of work, then began fitting pieces together within those themes until a logical sequence emerged. His book is divided into 10 sections, including worship, faith during difficult times, comforting the sick and sorrowing, Holy Week and Christmas.

Most entries are what Baron calls “prose with rhythm,” which creates a slower, more thoughtful reading of the text. Questions to ponder are scattered throughout. The Cascade resident speaks to readers on subjects such as fear, doubt, winter, parenting and praying. “I hope readers will be re-sensitized to their lives of faith in a world which challenges that faith in so many ways,” said Baron, who helped found the Calvin College Festival of Faith & Writing.

“Perhaps Talking with God can be a starting point to talk about things of the church, family life, worship, etc. I see the book as a journey into a meaningful, thoughtful, prayerful encounter with the world around us.”

 

Review: Talking with God

Calvin Spark magazine

Talking with God is a simple title, but most apt for this devotional book, according to author Henry Baron. “These are conversational prayers,” explained Baron, “not the pietistic prayers of Brother Lawrence. They are a down-to-earth kind of prayer that looks around you, struggling to see it all through the eyes of faith.”

The 104 meditations first appeared separately as a regular column over a 30-year period, from 1978 to 2008, in Baron’s church newsletter, Neland News. Over the years, church members encouraged Baron to collect the writings and circulate them outside of the congregation, but he kept dismissing the idea—until about a year ago.

“I started going back and reading and rediscovering what had been there,” he said. “The feeling grew that maybe this is something I should share.”

The collection touches on seasons of the calendar year and church year, but more on seasons of life and even more specifically on events, both trying and celebratory: divorce, the death of a child, graduation and travel.

“My writing grows out of a conviction that we are placed in this world to pay attention to what’s going on around us, with longing and faith that God is paying attention to it, too,” he said.

The pieces are honest reflections on experiences that Baron, his family and congregational members have encountered. “I write them in as honest and searching a way as I can muster,” Baron explained. “That’s what strikes people—they’re from the heart. One of things I imposed on myself was that you have to go deep, you have to feel it and then you find the words for it.”

 

 

Review: Talking with God

A devotional for all occasions

By Bert Witvoet, The Christian Courier

In his book Talking with God, Henry Baron has a quiet conversation with God about many things: losing a loved one, hunger and poverty in Africa, church worship, forgiveness, graduates, school, ascension, faith, doubt, marriage, beauty of nature, incurable sickness, fear, retirement, you name it. Baron is interested in everything that has to do with life, and he wants to talk with God about it. The result is a golden bowl full of prayers (Rev. 5:8) that are like casual conversations with a friend, except that the friend is called “Lord.”

The language is down-to-earth and unpretentious. But the author always finds an unusual way of lifting things out of the ordinary into a holy moment. Yet he does not try to be overly pious or lofty. Since Baron is professor emeritus of English, one can count on poetic sensitivities and the total avoidance of clichés and religious jargon. In fact, some of the talks are poems.

Baron asks a lot of questions, and he does it in a way that is both profound and humorous. In “Sides,” he asks God, “We wonder, Lord, whose side are you on? Are you liberal or conservative? Are you for women preachers and acceptance of gays? We’d like to know that, Lord. It would make things so much easier.  Synods could simply chant, ‘Who is on the Lord’s side…’ And delegates could start lining up, on one side or the other.”

Raising the question does not mean the author finds the answer; yet, he resolves the issue in one way or another. You have to read between the lines.

Something that Baron often does is take a critical look at how humans behave. But more often than not he includes himself in those who fail to live up to God’s expectations. The result is a non-judgmental analysis that helps us to do better, and, above all, that encourages us to seek grace and forgiveness. For example, in “Number One” Baron observes that “every eel wants to become a whale. It’s fallen human nature to look out for number one.” Notice the fine biblical insight here. So often we hear it said, “It’s human nature to make mistakes,” or “I’m only human.” Baron adds “fallen” to his statement, and that makes all the difference. The comment leaves us without excuse and unfailingly brings us to the cross.

Probing honesty

Many prayers end with an item called “To Ponder.” In “Number One” we are asked to ponder the question “What’s number 1 in your life?” That calls for self-examination. In “Praying” the author asks God what he thinks of our prayers: “God, do our many prayers ever make you sick?” What does God think of our public prayers at church and school meeting, which “function like a chairperson’s gavel that calls the meeting to order”? And so the “To Ponder” is “What do you think about public prayers?” 

The book breathes the notion that religion is for all of life, and that nothing is unimportant in the eyes of God. In fact, God wants us to pray not just for meals and before going to bed, but he wants to have a relationship with him, says Baron in “Prayer.” What kind of prayer does God want us to pray? Baron’s God replies by saying, you begin “by being honest with yourself and me; by simply telling me what’s on your mind, what’s in your heart.” This captures the essence of Talking with God. It teaches us how to pray in a more natural way.

Here is a devotional that is unlike most I have read. It’s actually a compilation of various reflections that Baron wrote over the years for the monthly publication of his home church, Neland Avenue Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I recommend it for your personal use, but also for public occasions. I know; I used his “If I were a preacher” for our congregational meeting a few weeks ago. It’s both funny and uplifting. In a gentle way it pokes fun at his own preacher ambitions but brings them down to earth with a smile: “But I’m not a preacher, Lord. I suffer neither from a preacher’s delusion of grandeur nor from his nightmare of despair. Like most of us, I just listen to them.” 

Review: Talking with God

By Steve Van Der Weele, Neland News, March 2011

What strikes the reader from the start of this unusual book of meditations is the boldness.  Author Baron takes up God’s challenge for his people to reason with Him. The biblical psalmists, too, while contemplating God’s over-arching majesty, nevertheless speak to him as a person speaks to a friend.  But for the modern writer and reader to engage in such a sustained series of direct addresses takes some practice. Baron pretty much covers the waterfront of our engagement with God and the life we live under His auspices. He arranges his conversations under these headings: Worship, Sharing our Faith, Family Life, Forgiveness, Grace and Hope, Going out Into the World, Faith During Difficult Times, Comforting the Sick and Sorrowing, Celebrations, Holy Week, Christmas. The collection,  contributions to his church paper, Neland News, over a period of thirty years, provides a ripe harvest of a thoughtful believer.

To talk with God means, grammatically speaking, that you are always writing in the second person, that you are always confronting another person or agent, that you need to both speak and listen, both hear and respond. The achievement should not be lost on 

the reader. Baron consistently brings us into God’s presence as he questions, reasons, offers thanks, confesses, submits to God’s greater wisdom. Prayers occupy  a large part of his discourse. He also engages in frequent  dialogues—back and forth, yin and yang  

about such issues of faith, prayer, and evil. In one he impersonates a follower of Jesus—one who starts as an observer but finishes as a follower. He often uses narrative, followed by a set of queries and observations. He sprinkles several adaptations and translations from other poets throughout his meditations—always appropriate and another source of enrichment. His essay “Christmas in China,” for example, is a heart-breaker.  He has just finished summarizing the gospel—creation, fall, redemption, restoration. One student walks out of the room in a gesture of repudiation. But another one says, “I feel the stab of beauty in my heart.”

One can’t with integrity contrive these dialogues, these conversations. He needs to be  habituated to living daily in God’s presence. Author Baron reveals this secret early on. He confesses—through the voice of God—that his prayers are often perfunctory, that no real praying can occur in the absence of a genuine relationship. That observation—that  speaking with God  requires integrity of heart and mind—serves throughout as the key to his intimacy with his Father. Thus, these are truly adult conversations. They are not sentimental or Pollyanna exercises. He wrestles hard and often refers to Job, to Peter, to Thomas.  He has, in fact, such facility with the Scriptures that its wisdom suffuses the whole collection of these meditations. Baron also understands well the boundaries, the legitimate parameters of matters he is permitted to inquire about. But he sustains the boldness, and the sanctified curiosity. He asks Jesus, What was it like to grow up into manhood knowing progressively what lay in your future? And how did you learn to sharpen your  wits against the baits and traps of the religious authorities? Baron enters into the heart of Jesus as He prays on the Mount of Olives while having him complain about the treachery and abandonment of his followers. At one point he asks God, “Do you regret that you made us, Lord?” And, come now, are you really listening to my prayers? Much of his discourse is written in the interrogative mood, with questions “insistent like the ringing of our alarm.” His concerns are wide-ranging. He thanks God for a unified Germany. He was appalled at the reality of apartheid in his visit to South Africa. But he also knows how hard it is to pray  during a hospital confinement, Were he writing today, he would thank God for the steps Egypt is taking to bring about a less repressive government.   

Each meditation ends with a challenge, a point to ponder. He poses, with Dutch Frisian directness, a question for the reader to contemplate:  What do your children need most from you?”  

This collection is a true gift to “God-seekers” as Baron calls them. My advice is for the reader to acquaint himself or herself with the organization of the book. It can point you reliably to the One who, in the turmoil of ringing phones, screaming children, terminal illness, life’s “dirty tricks”—has arrived here to help us—as the people observed after Jesus returned the son to his mother at Nain.  

No place in our universe,  Baron reminds us, in his own way, lies beyond God’s care, concern, and love.  And if you seek Him, you will surely find Him.

Review: Talking with God

By Dave Baker, West Michigan Christian News May 2011 

Talking with God was written by local author Henry Baron. It is in the “Prayer” category, but the book is a lot more than that.

First, it is an appropriate gifts for graduates, including a meditation written for them under the category of “Family Life.”

Second, grace is a common theme in Reformed Theology and there is a section on that as well.

As a former college level English professor, Henry Baron is an expert on a variety of topics relating to the Christian walk. Think of this book as a guide for getting through the liturgical year. Judging from sales activity, it has received a good response from the community.

Read Talking with God in preparation for the May 5 National Day of Prayer and grow closer to God in the process.

 

 

Reviews: The Way It Was: Growing up in War-time Holland

 

“History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.”

Stephen Spender

 

The problem with the art of the memoir is perception. Readers must decide if they are being shown a true representation of the past or a facsimile created by the passage of time that taints the memoirist’s observations with the jaded wisdom of life experience. Thus one never knows the truth and must take the memoirist’s words at face value even while questioning their validity, like James Frey’s discredited memoir, A Million Little Pieces.

Sid Baron’s memoir, The Way It Was: Growing Up in Wartime Holland, is in the same vein as such books as The Diary of Anne Frank (new revised version, The Diary of a Young Girl) and Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place. Like the aforementioned memoirs, Baron paints a picture of a semi-idyllic time of simple and undisturbed innocence in contrast to the sheer immensity of the evils committed in the name of the “The Final Solution” in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Baron’ boyhood was a simple agrarian existence on the cusp of industrialization in rural Holland. Baron writes, “When I was seven years old, sitting at the kitchen table and drawing on a piece of paper with a pencil was a favorite activity of mine...I could stare out the window and watch the wind...I could lazily dream about all the things little boys dream about.”

The idea of daydreaming during Nazi occupation seems ludicrous and any semblances of child-like wonder must have been buried down deep in the heart of survival. Such trivialities as maintaining the family farm, shopping, and going to school became more of a need to keep up the appearance of an accepted norm. Remaining inconspicuous to nosy neighbors as well as the enemy weighed heavily in importance. Baron continued to try to be a child even while his parents were part of the Holland resistance. Thrust into an insane situation, he was guilty by association. His chores became surreal: Hiding an unregistered illegal radio, carrying a pistol and barely avoiding being searched, denying to a known Nazi sympathizer that an ally soldier and his family were living in his home, and dodging machine gun bullets. Baron writes, “My few remaining steps to the house were interrupted by the sound of screaming fighter plane engines...Instantly, I dropped face down on the ground, clasping my hands around the back of my head to protect myself. Empty heavy-caliber machine gun shells rained down from the sky all around me and on the ribbed aluminum roof covering the pump house.”

While reading Baron’s lyrical prose, one cannot help but think how lucky he was to have come out World War II unscathed and able to tell his story. Some sixty years later, in 2007 there are countries on our planet where children must deal with enemy occupation and the stench of degradation and death everyday. How lucky our children are not to have to experience ethnic cleansing and war zones in their front and back yards.

Sid Baron is a successful business entrepreneur, sought-after public speaker, and author of the novel, Dawning of a New Day.

-Lee Gooden

 Foreword Magazine

 

“I received The Way it Was. I started reading it on the plane. It is going to be a great read! Thank you for writing the book and for sharing your experiences. It is a timely reminder that freedom must be supported, defended and nurtured. Thank you for your sacrifice and service”.

-Jerry A. Linzy, Chicago

 

“The Way it Was” provides a unique view of place, time and events our generation knows little about”.

-J. Smith, Attorney

 

“I started reading the book in late afternoon. I couldn’t put it down. After laughter and a tear, it was 2AM when I finished”.

-Mrs. Ruiz

California

 

“You’ve got me hooked from the first page. This is an exceptional story and your writing is so good”.

-Brion Sausser 

California

 

Just want to say thanks for writing the book. I’ve enjoyed it immensely. You made it SO real, and I could imagine being in your shoes many different times. I especially enjoyed the background on the religion. I have lived in the Orange City, Iowa area for 15 years and have always enjoyed the people and their heritage and beliefs. It helps to understand where some of these people are coming from. Have you ever considered writing about those first few years after immigration? I’ve always believed that the people immigrating then had it so much harder than those coming to the country now. Anyway, thanks again for putting your experiences on record. I do have to wonder if the church experience is real with the boy taking the skirt out of the ladies buns and then sticking it back in again? I’ve heard it in joke form, and didn’t think it had origins in reality.

- Deirdre Remmers

Iowa

 

 

I really enjoyed reading "The Way it Was".   

You had some incredible experiences growing up in Holland during the Second World War.  I sure do admire the sacrifices your parents made as part of the resistance.  I was fascinated with your ingenuity in using a windmill and bicycle to generate power for lights to milk the cows.  Wow!  You showed your ingenuity early in life.

The "life and death" secrets your parents shared with you at such an early age showed their full trust in you.  You described your memories very well and I almost felt that I was living through your experiences.

-R. Williams

Olympia, WA

 

The Way it Was offers a clear picture of life in the Netherlands.   More importantly, it demonstrates the important role faith and family must play in ensuring our freedom. In an era when fascism appears to be on the rise once again, it’s a lesson that today’s advocates of an “anything goes” society should pay close heed.

-James Nolan

Virginia

 

 Thank you for writing this wonderful book. I couldn’t imagine what it was like living under occupying forces and I admire what you and your family did during the war.

-Susan Theisen

 

While reading about what you as a child had to go through, I kept thinking that no young person should ever have to face such life-or-death decisions, or endure the terror you must have felt at times.  

 

It’s obvious your parents had a fixed “moral compass” they followed when times were hard. Their integrity and commitment to Biblical ideals made their mark on you, already as a young boy, who found a way to stand up to the class bully, and to protect someone who couldn’t defend himself. Though I don’t know you, I felt such pride when I read that part. I’m a third grade teacher, and I can tell you I have never seen a child go to the lengths you took for someone less able. The courage you showed then, and continued to show in your younger years is, in my opinion, remarkable.

This got me to thinking: How would I have fared in such desperate times. I think, not so well.  The fact is, I’m a bit prone to depression and anxiety. My earliest memories are clouded with worry and sadness. I know I inherit these traits from my Mom, and to some extent, my Dad. Which brings me back to wondering what the war was like for my parents.  It was tough enough for someone of sound mind. What it must have been like for those “less adaptable,” I can’t imagine.  

This is the best book I”ve picked up in a long time. For one thing, I like short books. And I love real-life stories. One minute I’d be crying. The little girl who got sick and died four days later really got me. The next minute, I’d be laughing. The story of the “smelly” coin had me laughing so hard, I had to stop pedaling my stationary bike at the gym. I had to re-tell the story to the gym members nearby. By the end, we were all laughing ourselves to tears!

I appreciate the simplicity and humility in your style of writing. Even as I’m typing this letter, I’m trying to word it just so.

Also, your writing has inspired me to journal some of my own childhood memories. And I’ve had more discussions with my parents about their childhoods and mine. This has brought us closer as a family. 

But mostly, your book has inspired me to be a better person.

Sincerely,

Linda Talstra