Handing Over the Controls (Friday Devotional)

“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

- 1 Peter 5:6-7

I was struggling, but I didn’t want to show it.

For Christmas, my cousins and I had received remote-controlled cars from an uncle, so as soon as we were allowed, we headed outside to test them out on the dirt road in front of my grandparents’ house. The controls were simple—the joystick went forward, backward, left, and right, and one button accelerated while another braked—but they were far from intuitive if you’d never had a toy like this, as was the case for me. Not wanting to look silly in front of my cousins, I played it safe at first, sending my car up and down the straight road at top speed, but not trying anything too tricky.

But when one of my cousins drove his car off a small lift in the road and made it do a flip in the air before landing it safely on the ground, we all wanted to try too. Most of my cousins got it after two or three tries, but I couldn’t quite find the right combination on my controller—every time I tried, the car just drove straight off the lift and nosedived into the ground. After a few minutes, I was the only one who hadn’t figured out the trick yet, and I was getting frustrated.

“Let me show you how to do it,” offered one of my cousins, but I refused. “It’s easy; just let me show you!” she persisted. She reached for the controller, but I angrily pulled it away from her. I was determined to do this myself. She shrugged and walked away with the rest of my cousins. Twenty minutes later, when the adults called for us all to come inside, I stayed behind and kept trying to make my car flip, to no avail. By the time my dad came outside to fetch me, he found me sitting on the ground wiping away embarrassed tears—the batteries had run out, and I’d never figured out the trick.

From childhood through adulthood, you never quite lose the desire to do things yourself, to get full credit, to do all the work and get all the glory. Teams are fine, but nothing matches the personal satisfaction of accomplishing something singlehandedly. Being in complete control from beginning to end is intoxicating.

But the truth is, there are a lot of problems you can’t solve by yourself, whether because you don’t have the time, don’t possess the resources, or because the problem doesn’t have one simple solution. When faced with that kind of situation, you must make a choice—to ask for help, or continue going it alone, to hand over the controls or keep failing on your own until your batteries run out.

In 1 Peter 5:7, believers are told to cast our anxiety on God, a simple reiteration of Jesus’s command from the Sermon on the Mount not to worry. But it is the preceding verse that gets to the heart of the matter: in order to cast your anxiety on God, you have to humble yourself, you have to trust God with your situation more than you trust yourself. Giving your problems to God in prayer is about more than halfheartedly asking for a lifeline, it is about relinquishing control.

For some people, this is the hardest command the Bible ever gave—harder than not judging, harder than enduring persecution with joy, harder than loving your enemies. They love to worship, they love to serve, they love to teach, but their faith dulls when the time comes to hand the controls to the Lord. Life in Christ is fun and rewarding and even easy for them—so long as they’re the ones setting the agenda.

But if you want to know abundant life in Christ, if you would trust God not only with your future but with your present, it means turning over your cares and concerns to Him—not just hoping He will help you, but trusting that He will. It means humbling yourself and accepting that the Creator of all things may know something you haven’t figured out yet. Most of all, it means believing that He cares for you and will see you through. Casting your anxieties and your worries on the Lord, having the humility to hand over the controls, is never easy, but face it: God’s a better driver than you.

Fight Fire with ________ (Friday Devotional)

“But in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.”

- 1 Peter 3:15-17

Firefighters are some of the most well-respected and admired people in modern society—for good reason. Firefighters rush to scenes that we flee; they run into buildings that we run out of. When flames threaten our property and our very lives, it is firefighters who bravely battle the destructive blaze in defense of our homes, businesses, and public spaces, at great risk to their own lives. Small wonder then that, from childhood through adulthood, we regard them as heroes.

But while we admire the work that firefighters do, there can be no denying that their approach is almost entirely reactionary—they don’t show up until something’s already burning, and once the flames have been extinguished, their work is done. Their fight is an entirely defensive one; they have no hope of permanently defending society from destructive fires because their task is put out fires once they have started.

So imagine if firefighters took a different, more aggressive approach. What if, upon arriving at a scene, they not only extinguished the blaze, but then determined who the perpetrator was (whether it was accidental or intentional). And what if, upon finding that person, they then went to his or her home and burned it down themselves as an act of retribution. “That’ll teach you,” they might say. “Fire is dangerous.”

Crazy, right? Maybe such an approach would, through fear and intimidation, promote more interest in fire safety and discourage arson. But nobody in their right minds wants to see more fires, even if it’s the good guys who start them. Battling fires the way they do now may be an endlessly defensive task, an unwinnable war, but we have no appetite for literally fighting fire with fire.

Doing so rhetorically is another matter. In the conflicts waged throughout society, from civil court to the political arena to the office, there exists an attitude that says you must fight exactly as dirty as your opponent in order to win—that if they are willing to lie then you must be too; if they are willing to cheat then you need to sink to their level just to stand a chance. Simply defending yourself from attack is not an option, according to this line of thought; you have to fight back just as hard and just as ‘tough.’

Sadly, this kind of thinking has even crept into Christianity. Some read 1 Peter 3:15—“always be ready to make your defense”—as a battle cry, and use it as justification to defend the faith by any means necessary. In defense of Christian teachings, leaders, Scripture, and the church, there is a temptation to fight the enemies of the faith using the weapons of this world, from self-righteousness to rumors to hateful rhetoric to even, in extreme cases, violence.

But disciples of the crucified Christ are called to something different. In the same verse that commands believers to be ready with a defense when questioned or persecuted, the apostle says, “yet, do it with gentleness and reverence.” The gospel is worthy of defending, but any defense must honor the Lord it proclaims, never sinking to means that stray from Christ’s commands and example. The enemy would love nothing more than a vicious, hateful, gossipy, materialistic, militant church that defends itself at all costs—even the cost of its witness. Don’t fall into that trap. The number one way you can stand up for Jesus is by living for him. It may seem satisfying to fight fire with fire, but turn instead to the only tool that can truly bring victory over the flames: living water.

Everything You Need (Friday Devotional)

“Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation—if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

- 1 Peter 2:1-3

Last week, Lindsey and I tried something new with our son Andrew: for the first time, we gave him some solid food to eat. His reactions started as soon as the mashed sweet potatoes touched his lips. First came eagerness and curiosity, his little body wiggling with excitement at the chance to do something new. As the taste of the sweet potatoes started to settle on his tongue, his brow furrowed into a puzzled expression. That confusion morphed almost immediately into displeasure—between the curled lip and the pleading look to his mama to rescue him, it was apparent that he was not a fan of this strange new food. He kept sticking his tongue out and licking his lips, and we were just starting to think he might be coming around when he delivered the coup de grâce by spitting up seemingly every bit of sweet potatoes we’d given him.

Maybe we should have known better than to expect a different result—the pediatrician had told us at our last appointment that Andrew didn’t need to start eating solid food until he was six months old (though we were welcome to try earlier anyway). Giving him solid food now isn’t going to hurt him, she said, but it isn’t necessary yet. He’s already getting everything he needs from his milk.

As Christians grow in faith, 1 Peter likens us to babies who long for “the pure, spiritual milk” of God. When you place your faith in Christ, you are trusting God to sustain, nourish, and empower your faith, to walk beside you as you grow. Just like a mother’s milk gives a baby everything he or she needs to grow, God gives you all you need to grow into your salvation if you will place yourself in His hands.

But there is always the temptation to throw in something extra, to corrupt a spiritual diet that is already giving you everything you need. When God’s way seems too slow or too merciful or too impractical, sometimes we respond by supplementing His will with our own, deviating from life in Christ just to get a taste of something different. This is not only unnecessary, but harmful—God calls on His children to trust Him fully, not just to go along when His way is immediately appealing. To choose your way instead of God’s is idolatry, and however enticing idolatry seems initially, it never fails to disappoint in the end.

The fact is that, in Christ, God has given you everything necessary for abundant, and ultimately eternal, life. There is nothing that this world can add to the gospel that will make it more beneficial, nothing you can try outside of His will that will bring you the joy of fellowship with Him. So may you seek contentment, fulfillment, purpose, and salvation itself not in the ways and wares of this world, but in the kingdom of God—for there you will find everything you really need.

Straying from Home (Friday Devotional)

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”

- 1 Peter 2:24-25

As we pulled up to her grandparents’ house this past Saturday, Lindsey and I noticed something unusual several houses down: five small, white dogs scampering around with no owner in sight. Looking closer, we could see that each one had a collar on, signaling to us that they were not strays. I hopped out of the car and started toward them slowly, hoping to get hold of one so that I could call the phone number on its collar and get them all back to their owners. But as soon as they saw me, they retreated, yapping frantically as they fled. I’d made it halfway down the street trying to get close enough to one to grab its collar when I saw them sprint toward a chain link fence and through its open gate…right into their own backyard, where their relieved owner was waiting, having just discovered them missing. The dogs had wanted their taste of independence, but when they got scared, the only place they wanted to go was back to their master.

In 1 Peter 2:25, we learn that in one sense we are not so different from those dogs. “For you were going astray like sheep,” the verse says. We are all prone to this original sin of idolatry, thinking we know better than God and can find fulfillment elsewhere. So we look for satisfaction in other places: in work or money or drugs or entertainment or sex, anywhere that brings us happiness, however fleeting.

But God willing, eventually the same thing happens to you as did to the prodigal son of Luke 15, or, for that matter, to the dogs I saw last weekend. The world gets a little too strange, a little too scary, a little too real, and the same independence which was initially so liberating suddenly becomes terrifying, and you just want to go back to the safety of home.

It is only the blood of Jesus that makes such a return possible, that frees you from the burden of sin and enables you to return to “the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” His sacrificial death on the cross has cleansed you from unrighteousness so that you might live for righteousness, and “by his wounds you have been healed.” Freed from sin’s clutches, you are able to be in fellowship with God and to live for Him, to enjoy the abundant life He always intended for you.

There may be times you stray beyond the bounds of faithfulness, but you will never be a stray again—the cross is your collar, marking you as one bought with a price, as someone with a loving master waiting for your return. When you are tempted, when you look beyond the fence line and wonder what it would be like to go back to the life you knew before, remember that sin may offer the mirage of independence, but only Christ can offer the happiness of home.

April Book Log

I did a lot of reading in April, most of it fiction (including, as my dad pointed out to me last month, a host of children's books. Andrew doesn't have a favorite yet, but I'm pretty fond of Where the Wild Things Are, more now than I was as a child.) So here's 4,000 words for you to read...enjoy!

THE MEANING OF JESUS: TWO VISIONS by Marcus J. Borg and N.T. Wright

Did Jesus believe he was the Messiah? Was he really born of a virgin? Was the salvation of humanity the fundamental purpose of the cross?

These are the kinds of questions The Meaning of Jesus asks Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright, two biblical scholars who study Scripture through the lens of historical criticism. Both are professing Christians, but nevertheless, they have very different answers to the questions above. The Meaning of Jesus offers each man a chance to explain his view of how "the Jesus of faith", i.e. the Son of God who was and is and is to come (a truth which requires faith), differs from "the historical Jesus", i.e. the 30-year old carpenter's son from Nazareth (a truth for which there is objective proof).

N.T. Wright, a favorite biblical scholar of mine (and the chief reason I bought this book up to begin with), represents the conservative/orthodox viewpoint in answering these questions, arguing that Jesus really was born of a virgin, that he was and is God, that his resurrection was a literal bodily resurrection, etc. Since both he and Borg are approaching these questions via historical criticism, he takes an interesting tack to make his argument--instead of being the orthodoxy police by saying "you have to believe this to call yourself a Christian", his counterintuitive but interesting case is that it makes more logical, empirical, historical sense to believe these things than to reject them. For example, in arguing for a bodily resurrection, he points out that the early church boldly and universally proclaimed a bodily resurrection at no small risk to themselves, that it was the foundation of their witness, and that many came to faith as a result. For the apostles and other early Christians to have preached this message so boldly and to have achieved such incredible evangelistic success even in the face of persecution, Wright argues, Occam's razor dictates that it actually makes more sense to believe the obvious truth--that Jesus really was physically raised from the dead--than to believe the apostles were perpetrating a hoax or exaggerating some sort of spiritual resurrection into a literal one for the sake of a better story. If Jesus had not really risen from the dead, Wright says, then surely his disciples would have done what the followers of so many other would-be messiahs of that era did: move on with their lives, disappointed by the failure of the man they thought was going to change everything. This kind of approach to apologetics was extremely convincing in some cases and lacking in others, but it was interesting to read regardless.

Borg approaches the questions with a more theologically liberal outlook. His central argument is that the gospel writers started with one central belief (which he shares), that Jesus Christ is now the living Savior and Son of God and that by placing your trust in him you can know and be with God eternally. From that starting point, they wrote that belief into historical events and, for the sake of elevating that central belief (call it the capital-g Gospel if you like), also invented some stories that they never intended readers to understand as historical fact, but told for the sake of making the Gospel clear. So, for example, Borg believes Jesus did not actually predict his death, burial, and resurrection three times before they happened, as the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke say he did--if that were the case, he argues, then the cross surely would not have been such a surprise to the disciples. His belief is that the gospel writers were telling a higher truth at the expense of the historical record--showing that the cross was foreknown by God, even if Jesus didn't literally tell the Twelve about it or even know about it himself. The gospel writers, he correctly points out, are not historians, but evangelists, and should be read that way.

To summarize, Borg has a typical liberal argument about Scripture: you're all reading it too literally. Wright has the typical conservative rebuttal: how are you supposed to decide which parts are fact and which are fiction? Better, says Wright, to acknowledge and fall back on the weight of reason, faith, and church tradition by claiming it all as truth than to twist yourself in theological knots arguing for Borg's "metaphorized" truth.

As you probably guessed, I was more sympathetic to Wright's argument than Borg's. That being said, Borg's chapters made for more interesting reading, because they forced me to carefully examine my own beliefs and contend with his (where with Wright I was basically just nodding 90% of the time). I'm a big believer in a liberal education and critical thinking, both of which involve listening to and engaging with beliefs you don't hold and growing from the experience, and so reading Borg was an excellent exercise in that respect. 

Furthermore, since theological arguments unfortunately can tend to be as vicious and mean-spirited as political fights, it was refreshing to see these two brilliant Christians engage one another in a spirit of not only respect, but friendship--neither man ceding his argument, but both listening and responding with grace. If you're interested in the debate about the historical Jesus and want to hear both sides of the argument, this is the first place I would point you.

LET THE NATIONS BE GLAD!: THE SUPREMACY OF GOD IN MISSIONS by John Piper

I'm not the biggest John Piper fan--I find him to be overly dogmatic, more than a little arrogant, overrated as a preacher, prone to proof-texting, and waaaay too tied to a man-made theological system (Calvinism). So I'll admit that I approached this book with considerable skepticism, sure that I was in for 200+ pages of frustration. What I forgot was this: I agree with 90-95% of Piper's theology (it's just that the 5-10% is what has made him famous.) If you're a Piper fan, you'll love Let the Nations Be Glad, but if your feelings about him are similar to mine, chances are you'll still like most, if not all, of what he has to say. 

The subject of the book is missions, with Piper making the case that the chief aim of missions should be to glorify God, i.e. that missions must be an act of worship first and an act of service second. Piper believes that while love for the lost is a worthy motivation for missions, it is not enough--ultimately, as the book's subtitle indicates, love of God must be supreme for missions to be sustainable and successful. It's a simple thesis, but one probably not emphasized enough in our humanistic age, and the more I read, the more I found myself appreciating it.

While I appreciated it's overall thrust, the book is by no means perfect. Let the Nations Be Glad isn't necessarily an entertaining read--in another life, Piper would have been an excellent lawyer, because his writing often reminds me of legal briefs, full of technical jargon and every shred of evidence he can find that supports his argument (in one section there are 6 straight pages of proof texts to back up one of his points). He tends to go off on rabbit trails, especially in the footnotes. And sometimes it seems like Jonathan Edwards is the only theologian he's ever read.

But at its best, Let the Nations Be Glad reminded me of the importance, objective, and ultimate end of missions, and for that I am exceedingly thankful. I don't know if you'll learn anything new about missions, about theology, or even about Piper himself from this book, but I'd be surprised if you aren't refocused on missions by the end--and even if all he did was light a fire under this book's readers to be more missions-minded, I'm confident Piper would consider that a job well done.

THE CIRCLE by Dave Eggers

If the title of this novel sounds familiar, it's because the film adaptation, starring Emma Watson and Tom Hanks, came out this past weekend (to, unfortunately, pretty bad reviews). While I've had this book sitting on my shelf for nearly a year, it was the movie that prompted me to finally get around to it, wanting to be sure I read the source material before I watched Hollywood take liberties with it.

I'm glad I did so, because while The Circle is neither perfect nor as prophetic as Dave Eggers wants it to be, it is nevertheless my favorite book of his that I've read so far (following his memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and the nonfiction-ish What is the What and Zeitoun). A breezily told dystopian thriller, The Circle tells the story of Mae, an ambitious young woman hired to work at a tech company called the Circle, a fictional sort of hybrid of Google, Facebook, and Apple in scope and culture. As the novel progresses, Mae becomes more and more entrenched in the mission of the Circle: to use social media and the Internet to learn everything there is to know. "Knowing is good," as Tom Hanks's character says in the movie trailer. "Knowing everything is better." As you might suspect, this pursuit of more and more information comes with unseen implications for personal privacy, human interaction, emotional connection, and even government, ultimately leading Mae down a a dark path.

This is a good book, hindered only by the painfully obvious impression that Eggers wants it to be a great book, the kind students will have as assigned reading in 50 years. He's trying to write 1984 for the social media generation, and he falls short in that respect. I'd liken this more to Anthem, one of Ayn Rand's shorter works (I've yet to attempt to plow through The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged)--it's a good story that too often devolves into a sermon. That preachiness serves neither the reader nor the story and makes clear that Eggers committed the cardinal sin of fiction writing: he started with a message and then built a story around it instead of the other way around.

With that being said, the warnings the book contains about the Information Age in general and social media in particular are worthy ones: it's dangerous to give so much personal information to a corporation; social media makes you less connected to your friends, not more; social media is just a glorified gossip medum; etc. The point that all these smaller warnings fall under is a thoughtful and broader one: there are some things we are better off not knowing, and secrecy is sometimes not only necessary, but helpful. In an age where "transparency" is usually deemed an inherent good, Eggers effectively shows the slippery slope that mentality leads us down.

The Circle is too preachy, too simple (a sin the movie appears to be doubling down on), and too long...but I really liked it, and it made me think. If you've never given much thought to how quickly utopian visions can turn into dystopian realities, if you live on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, and if you can't imagine getting through an hour without checking your phone, I definitely recommend reading this book. 

MOONGLOW by Michael Chabon

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

That famous line from the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance serves as a decent synopsis of Moonglow, the latest offering from my favorite author, Michael Chabon. Based on a series of conversations with his dying grandfather, his own research, and the bits and pieces he picked up from other family members, Chabon constructs a story that blends fact and fiction, truth and family legend. As he says in an introductory note to the reader, "In preparing this memoir, I have stuck to the facts, except when facts refused to conform with memory, narrative purpose, or the truth as I prefer to understand it. Whatever liberties have been taken with names, dates, places, events, and conversations, or with the identities, motivations, and the interrelationships of family members and historical personages, the reader is assured that they have been taken with due abandon."

So how's the story itself? Well...pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.

In general, Moonglow is Chabon's fictionalized story of his grandfather's life, a life that included intelligence work in World War II, a prison stay, a marriage to a mentally ill Holocaust survivor, a hunt for a snake in a retirement community, and a lifelong obsession with rocketry. The story is not always told linearly, which keeps the reader on their toes but also makes for a slightly confusing beginning, at least until you have a good handle on the characters. The writing is, as always with Chabon, beautiful--every time I read something by Chabon, I feel like a high school basketball player watching LeBron James, wishing I had 1% of his talent.

My #1 issue with Moonglow was that, while entertaining, I spent much of the book wondering why this was worthy of a novel/memoir/whatever you call this hybrid genre. I wanted the book to be about something in the way that all great novels are. So the last 50 pages came as a relief, with Chabon finally laying his cards on the table in a subtle beautiful way, tying the story together with its storyteller and its storytelling technique, proving that this whole endeavor had a purpose. Ultimately Moonglow illustrates the power of story over everything, even facts, a relevant concept in the age of "fake news." 

Moonglow is not Chabon's best work (for that, read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the best novel I've ever read), but it's worth your time and, despite bogging you down in the middle, leaves you wanting more at the end. If you believe in storytelling's ability to change things, you'll like it.

THE COMPLETE STORIES OF FLANNERY O'CONNOR by Flannery O'Connor

Hey look! Sermon illustrations!

That was basically my reaction after reading a few of the stories in this book, a compilation of all 31 that Flannery O'Connor wrote in her too-short career (she died in 1964 at age 39). A devout Catholic and proud Southerner, each story was filled with insights into the sinfulness of humankind, the threatening specter of death, and the power and rarity of grace, all singing in the cadences of the Southern dialect (complete with, be warned, a LOT of n-words). It seems to be universally agreed that pastors should appreciate O'Connor, and I now know why; she dramatizes the same spiritual conflicts we preach about every Sunday.

It was interesting to observe her writing ability's progression as I worked my way from story to story (I read one every day starting on the last day of March). I'll admit to being underwhelmed in the early going, but by the time I finished the collection, I understood why literary geeks consider her early death such a tragedy--she was only getting better with age. From the beginning she was a master of dialogue, but the stories' structures became tighter, themes deepened, and characters grew more interesting in the back half of the collection.

It's hard to review a collection of short stories because every story is different, but there were some recurring themes (and, in the early years, recurring characters). If a character identified as an artistic type, he or she was probably full of it. If someone seemed ugly or cruel in the opening pages, they were probably not going to be redeemed over the course of the story. And most of all, somebody was probably going to die at the end. O'Connor's take on humanity was a bleak one, and only her wicked sense of humor and knack for gussying up the darkness with Southern humor made her stories enjoyable reading experiences instead of exercises in masochism. If you like black humor, you'll like these stories.

I'd definitely recommend reading O'Connor, and now plan to read her two novels, Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away, somewhere along the line. If you have to pick just one story, my personal favorite was "The Lame Shall Enter First," although "The Artificial Nigger," "The Enduring Chill," "The Displaced Person," and "Everything That Rises Must Converge" all deserve honorable mention.

SAGA VOL. 1-7 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

It's odd, but true: the best book on marriage and parenting I've ever read stars a husband/father with horns and a wife/mother with wings, not to mention a cat who is a living lie detector, a ghost nanny, an adversary named Prince Robot IV whose head is a television, and a friend who looks like a baby seal wearing yellow overalls. That's the kind of wacky universe Saga traffics in, but some things are true even in a galaxy far, far away--and the importance of family tops the list and drives the book.

Saga, an ongoing story that I've been buying on a monthly basis since issue #1 came out in March 2012, tells the story of Marko and Alana, two star-crossed lovers (are there any other kind in fiction?) who have not only fallen in love and gotten married despite coming from different, warring worlds, but made a child together. Their union alone is enough to make them outlaws from both their worlds, but the existence of their daughter, Hazel, only intensifies the danger--if either Marko or Alana's people find them, there is no doubt that Hazel will not survive the encounter. Their life is one lived on the lam, constantly running from bounty hunters and allies of their homeworlds all while trying to raise their daughter in as normal an environment as possible.

There is a lot to love about this book. For one thing, it is hilarious--Vaughan and Staples have an awesome, silly (albeit R-rated) sense of humor, and the art complements the dialogue in that respect. I laugh every issue. That being said, they can also handle serious issues, from death to addiction to war. The book is neither a comedy nor a melodrama--like life, it's funny sometimes and grim at others, often in the same day. While reading one particular issue, I laughed out loud at one sight gag and was in tears by the last page. That's what I call good writing.

Saga matches two creators at the peak of their powers, and readers are the beneficiaries of their partnership. Brian K. Vaughan was already a star when he launched this book, but it has cemented his status as an all-timer in the industry--in my opinion, he is currently the best writer in comics. And Fiona Staples, an unknown to most readers (including me) when the book launched, has been catapulted into fame by its success, and rightly so; at this point I can't imagine anyone else drawing this. Their artistic chemistry is incredible, and readers have never had to suffer through a fill-in writer or artist.

Ultimately what makes this book work is not its intricate plot or clever dialogue or beautiful art, but its characters, from Marko and Alana to the friends and enemies they make along the way. Every character is three-dimensional, selfish at times and generous at others. And for every character, including the so-called villains, family is the primary motivator--everyone from Marko and Alana to the enemies chasing them are just trying to do what's best for their loved ones. It is that theme that gives the book heart and purpose, and that keeps it relatable at all times, even when you're reading about a rocketship forest or a proxy war fought on a comet. This is my favorite comic book on the shelves right now and has been for 5 years and counting--whether you like comics or not, I can't imagine you reading this and not enjoying it.

BATMAN VOL. 1-3 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

In 2011, DC Comics took a drastic step in order to generate interest and attempt to bring in new readers: they rebooted their entire comics universe, cancelling every title and then starting over with 52 different #1 issues, from standbys like Wonder Woman and the Justice League of America to new characters like Batwing and Resurrection Man. Some characters emerged from the reboot with brand new histories, supporting characters, and costumes (Superman), while others found their titles virtually unaffected by the renumbering (Green Lantern). By the time a few years had passed, it was clear that the experiment was a failure--longtime fans did not appreciate the changes to their favorite characters, new readers moved on, and both the writing and art grew stale as the "New 52" lost its novelty and began to feel like a shadow of the universe that had come before it. The one unquestioned success of the New 52's 5 year run (starting with last May's standalone "DC Universe: Rebirth Special", DC has begun to put its old universe back together) was Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's 52 issue run on Batman, which, especially in its first couple of years, breathed new life into one of comics' most popular characters.

The first two volumes of the run remain its high-water mark, with Batman taking on a new villainous group called the Court of Owls. In the story, Snyder establishes a legend that Gotham has for centuries been ruled from the shadows by a secret group of millionaires called the Court of Owls, which always includes an assassin called a Talon. Children in Gotham grow up hearing about the Court in a nursery rhyme, but much like Batman in his early days, few believe it to be real. This goes double for Batman, who had investigated the Court as a boy following the death of his parents, hoping that there was something more to their deaths than the randomness of a street mugging, and determined them to be a myth.

It is that arrogance, that sense that he knows Gotham better than anyone, that it is his city, that leads to Batman's initial undoing, as the Court reveals themselves and systematically defeats him, nearly driving him mad in an underground labyrinth where they lock him in for weeks. That issue, by the way, which shows Batman trying unsuccessfully to navigate the labyrinth, is one of the finest Batman issues I've ever read, placing Batman in the exceedingly rare position of being outwitted and in someone else's control, and using the comic medium creatively (sideways and upside down pages) to visually show his mental state fraying.

The conflict eventually leads to a crossover event across all the Batman family titles, the Night of the Owls, in which the Court awakens a legion of undead Talons and unleashes them upon Gotham, including one who claims to have a very unique tie to Bruce Wayne. The story's conclusion is pitch perfect, with Batman refusing to believe the Talon's tale and you unsure whether he is right or whether his arrogance is once again getting the better of him. The Court of Owls has yet to return, but rest assured, they will--these were, by most fans' estimation, the best new villains in a Batman book in decades.

After putting his stamp on Batman's history with these new villains, Snyder and Capullo then take on the oldest and biggest villain of all, the Joker, offering possibly the most chilling version of the character I've ever read. This Joker had his face literally cut off by another villain called the Dollmaker, leaving him a visual nightmare, with the flesh now tacked loosely back on skull. The experience has only made him more psychopathic and terrifying, and in this story he makes it his mission to destroy Batman in the most personal way possible: by dividing him from the family he has established over the years, introducing a distrust between him and Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and the rest that will perhaps never be fully resolved.

I LOVED this story, and Syder's Joker is so scary that he might actually give you nightmares, but the stakes of the story did seem flawed--Snyder writes it as though Batman's family will never trust him again, and you don't have to be a cynic to know that as soon as there's a chance for a big crossover, they'll be working together again. Nothing is forever in superhero comics, not even death, so the idea of a permanent rift between Batman and his family, while making for a good story, just isn't sustainable. But the journey to get there is outstanding, and like the previous story about the Court of Owls, the conclusion leaves you with unanswered question about identities: does the Joker know Batman's secret identity? And, maybe more importantly, does he even care?

After these two stories, Snyder and Capullo would continue telling Batman's stories for another 30+ issues, but these were always my favorites. If you're interested in a fresh take on Batman that doesn't require you to have already been reading the title for years, I'd start here.