Pete Gall on Collector Crabs

I liked this book. In My Beautiful Idol, Pete Gall writes a bizarro version of religious biography, where every attempt at ministry is greeted with indifference by others or his own self-sabotage. The book has a similar feel to Donald Miller's work. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to his next book, Learning My Name.

Here is an especially thought provoking sample from the book:

"The collector crab, or decorator crab, as it’s also called, attaches to his shell bits of what it finds on the sea floor. According to the narrator with the British accent, the idea is to protect itself by becoming invisible to its natural enemy, the squid. Makes sense, I thought. People do the same thing. And like the collector crab, which sometimes chooses camouflage that actually makes the crab easier to spot, we can’t ever be all that sure about the stuff we pick up and attach to our shells; all we can do is grab what looks good to us. That’s where I come in. My job in advertising is to sell people, all bearers of the likeness of God, baubles to attach to their personal shells. Products, services, impressions, approaches, tones, movements, whatever—anything that can help build a consumer’s 'personal brand.' Our god is our personal brand, our existential self, our chosen reflection or explanation or defense or excuse to the world. It’s how we hide from the 'squids' in our lives, which show up in the form of evil or fear or shame or whatever else we want to avoid. And the squids are everywhere, looking to devour us. We’re desperate to do what we can to camouflage ourselves—from fig leaves to 401(k)s, we’re all about covering our nakedness. We scurry along through the dark corners of our worlds looking for hiding places. Looking for hiding places we can take with us. And it feels like it works so long as we remain uneaten."

A great summertime read.