November Reading Log

 

Shortest reading log ever...it's been a busy season. Expect another short one next month, but then (hopefully) I'll be back in full swing in January!

Reading Through the Fantastic Four- #19-40 (v. 3)

I would love to tell you Chris Claremont followed up his legendary run on Uncanny X-Men with an equally excellent time at the helm of Fantastic Four. I would love to tell you that, really. Unfortunately, despite some interesting nuggets here and there, Claremont's run, which ran from issue #4 through #32 of this third volume of Marvel's First Family, sees an old dog unable to learn new tricks, leaving readers with a book that never quite feels right.

The good: Claremont introduces Valeria von Doom, the daughter of Susan Richards and Doctor Doom in an alternate universe. Valeria was immediately a hit with fans and proved so interesting that she warranted her own short-lived spinoff title. Also in the good camp was a storyline that saw Reed's mind trapped in Doctor Doom's body, the sort of Freaky Friday story that made you think, "I can't believe they haven't done this already!"

The bad: while in the latter half of his run Claremont listened to the criticisms he was receiving and toned down the crossovers with his old X-Men and Captain Britain characters, this never really feels like a Fantastic Four book, more like a Chris Claremont book. It's hard to explain, but he just doesn't have a handle on these characters; what was supposed to be something of a reboot of the title was almost immediately disposed of when his run came to an end, with all of his changes immediately retconned.

Ultimately, this is a case of miscasting: Chris Claremont is a good writer, but not the right fit for the FF. His successors, Jeph Loeb and artist Carlos Pacheco would get the book back on solid ground before yielding the floor to all-time great pairing Mark Waid and Mark Weiringo. More on Loeb-Pacheco next month!

LEADERSHIP IN TURBULENT TIMES by Doris Kearns Goodwin

One of the reasons I so enjoy reading presidential memoirs and biographies is the case studies they offer in leadership. By reading how these real-life leaders handled real-life crises, I'm able to draw lessons that resonate much more with me than any list of principles. In Leadership in Turbulent Times, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin gives both, offering explicit education in leadership from the lives of the presidents she's spent her career studying.

The first section of the book looks at the early life and formation of the four men her book deals with: Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson. For those who, like me, have already read her bestselling books on these subjects, this part of the book is review, a distillation of the early chapters in those works. But in the section section she gets to what the book's all about. Using a case study from each leader—Lincoln's drafting and release of the Emancipation Proclamation, TR's navigation of a mining strike, FDR's first hundred days, and LBJ's crafting and guidance of the Great Society legislation—Kearns Goodwin tells the step-by-step history of these events while also directly pointing out the leadership lessons they offer.

If, like me, you were partially reading her earlier biographies for lessons in leadership, some of this book may be a little on the nose, explicitly stating lessons you'd already picked up between the lines. Nevertheless, the author's prose is as sparkling as ever, her subjects still fascinating, and the lessons remain worth learning. Especially if you haven't read those biographies, this is a great place to place to pick up some pointers on leadership while learning some history along the way.

ESSENTIAL PUNISHER VOL. 3 by Mike Baron, Bill Reinhold, Mark Texeira, Lee Sullivan, et al.

The late 1980s and early 1990s are one of my least favorite periods in comics history. The Punisher is one of my least favorite protagonists. So this volume never had much hope for a sterling review.

With Mike Baron still at the writing helm, as he had been since Frank Castle first got his own ongoing series, the Punisher continues to be portrayed as a gruff, Rambo-esque avenger, a take-no-prisoners killer concerned less with friends or ethics than with his war on criminals. Sometimes that works—there are a few self-contained issues in this book where Punisher takes on a drug kingpin or serial killer in New York City, and there is a thrill in moving from the introduction of said baddie to their extermination at Castle's hands.

The problem is that Baron seems convinced that readers will get bored of that, so he's constantly putting Punisher in situations that seem outside the purview of his war on crime in the inner city. Whether it's a multi-issue arc that sees Punisher taking on insider trading or another that transports him to the jungles of Venezuela, Baron seems intent on putting the character in unfamiliar settings for the sake of variety. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think variety is something the average Punisher fan was demanding. For my part, these diversions don't work at a character level or a story level.

The art throughout the book is pretty pedestrian, emblematic of its era—lots of sketchy linework à la Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld but without their dynamism. It doesn't help that the book never seems to have the same artist from issue to issue despite the consistency on the writing side from Mike Baron.

Like I said, this book never had much of a shot with this reviewer, and it didn't do anything compelling enough to win me over. We'll see how things go in the fourth and final volume, but I'll admit...my expectations are low.

Thanksgiving (Friday Devotional)

 

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

The leftovers are in the fridge, the Macy’s parade floats are going back in storage, and your extended family’s on their way home. Thanksgiving Day has come to an end. With that annual reminder of God’s blessings in the rearview mirror, what should you do now?

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

With Turkey Day behind us, thoughts now turn to the busyness of the Christmas season. There are cards to send, presents to buy, parties to attend, and cookies to bake. What should be the first item on your to-do list?

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

What about for those whose December will be marked by more loss than joy, more grief than hope? How should those readying for a blue Christmas respond in anticipation of their pain?

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Gratitude is for more than one day. Worship is for more than one season. Prayer is for more than just hard times. So rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Able to Endure (Friday Devotional)

 

“May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.”

- Colossians 1:11-12

Certain prayers are easier than others. When you ask God for a blessing—over your meal, your day, your home, your work, your church, or your child—you probably don’t struggle with making that request. After all, if God gives you what you want, you benefit. The same goes for prayers for protection, forgiveness, and especially prayers of thanksgiving. When God has made you a winner or you’re asking him to do so, those prayers roll right off your tongue.

So most of the blessing Paul extends on the church’s behalf in Colossians 1:11-12 is the kind of prayer you’d like to see someone extend on your behalf. “May you be strong”—check. “Joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light”—check. These are the kinds of things you want to hear in prayers offered on your behalf, because these are the kinds of prayers that, properly answered, make you a winner.

But the middle part of Paul’s blessing may rub you the wrong way: “may you be prepared to endure everything with patience.” Patience? Who said anything about that? Endure everything? Wait, wouldn’t it be simpler for me not to have to endure anything?

This aspect of Paul’s blessing makes an assumption we’re not comfortable with—that trials, suffering, and loss are a part of the Christian life. Jesus told us that if you want to be his disciple, it means taking up your cross, and we tend to misinterpret what he meant by that. We assume it means we should live like Jesus, but forget that it means we should also be willing to suffer like Jesus. We assume it means we should follow Jesus, but forget where he ultimately led. We assume it means we should honor Jesus, but then tend to honor only the parts we’re comfortable with 

The truth of discipleship, as preached and embodied by both Christ and the apostles, is that sometimes life doesn’t go your way, that sometimes on the road to glory you must first carry a cross. Christ did not save us so that we might escape the problems this world throws our way, but so that we might be lights in the darkness. So as you turn your eyes toward heaven in prayer, may you pray not only for strength to overcome your tribulations and for the joy of victory over them, but for the patience to endure them.

Insane Forgiveness (Friday Devotional)

 

Then Peter approached him and asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?”

“I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven.”

- Matthew 18:21-22

The definition of insanity, goes the oft-repeated cliché, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Popularly attributed to Albert Einstein, that witticism speaks to the necessity for changing ineffective habits—if ain’t broke then don’t fix it, but if it is broke, then quit expecting it to work! Repetition only makes sense if what you’re doing is helping you.

So then, what’s the deal with Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness? Asked how often it would be appropriate to forgive a fellow believer, someone with the same spiritual grounding in the grace of God that you have, Jesus responded that seven times—more than twice the amount required by the Law of Moses—was insufficient. Don’t forgive seven times, Jesus said, but seventy times seven.

Isn’t that, well, insane? If someone is wronging you over and over again, if they’re taking advantage of your patience and goodwill, if they simply can’t get their act together, then doesn’t it make more sense for you to just cut them off? Isn’t it more efficient and more reasonable to offer conditional forgiveness instead of unconditional grace?

The answer, quite simply, is yes. Jesus’ command to forgive and forgive and forgive, even when our brothers and sisters continue to stumble, is an entirely unreasonable demand. But it’s also exactly what God does for us. Our Father in heaven loves us so much that, despite our repeated and even willful disobedience, He forgives our sins if we do no more than confess and repent. So mighty is His mercy, so great His grace, that He sent His only Son to secure our salvation, even as we continue to let Him down.

What He asks of His disciples is that we do the same for each other. Even when others call it unreasonable or inefficient or insane, the church is meant to be a place where repentance is always accepted and forgiveness always extended. Does it make sense? No. But then, grace has never been about logic—it’s about love.

Healthy Imitation (Friday Devotional)

 

Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

- 1 John 2:6

On Sunday night and the following morning, my son was down for the count, sick enough that he left our church’s fall festival an hour early and didn’t go to school Monday morning. Hacking cough, fever, runny nose, labored breathing, the works—the kid just felt awful.

My daughter didn’t totally understand what was going on; she was having trouble fathoming why her bubba kept grunting, “Give me space!” whenever she got close to him. After a few rounds of this, we explained to her that Andrew was sick and that’s why he was lying down and kept coughing. She paused to process this for a moment, then her eyes lit up. With the acting prowess of a young Meryl Streep, she threw herself down on the ground, hacked out a few coughs, and then looked up at us. “I sick too, see? Just like Bubba!”

Imitation, as the saying goes, is the sincerest form of flattery. But it’s important to be sure you’re imitating the right things.

If you model your life after this world’s idols, you will give people the impression that those idols’ priorities—be they money, power, fame, or pleasure—are what matters most to you. The more you emulate superstar athletes, political figures, and Hollywood celebrities, the more prone you will become to following in their footsteps even when they veer off track.

In Christ, we have been given the model human being, a literally perfect person who shows us not only the character of God, but what a sinless life looks like. And if we want our lives to bear witness to his, we ought to walk as he walked and live as he lived—we ought to be marked by holiness, mercy, and love.

Inevitably, you’re going to imitate someone. Make sure your choice is the healthy one.

October Reading Log

The end of the month was too busy for a lot of reading, but I had time in the first few weeks to get in some good books. Check out what I enjoyed!

Reading Through the Fantastic Four- #1-18 (v. 3)

From 1974 to 1991, Chris Claremont was the main creative force behind the most popular characters in comics, the X-Men. For better and for worse, that universe's never-ending soap opera was directed by maestro Claremont, who send them through time and space more times than anyone could count and created an ecosystem populated by so many characters you needed a scorecard to keep up. 

Unfortunately for Claremont, by the time he sought greener pastures post-X-Men, his reputation had taken something of a hit, with his verbose, melodramatic style not necessarily seen as a good fit for the oncoming 21st century. He was looking to make a name for himself all over again in a different corner of the Marvel Universe.

He would get that opportunity with the Fantastic Four coming out of the yearlong Heroes Reborn experiment that had crashed and burned. And while Claremont's FF relaunch isn't technically an X-Men book, it sure feels like one around the edges.

Lots of time travel, multiple guest stars from the X-universe, and so many word balloons you start to wonder if Claremont had some dirt on his editor...it all feels pretty run-of-the-mill for Claremont. The changes and new characters he introduces to the book feel destined to be ignored after his departure (they were), and Salvador Larocca's art is a perfect match for the time...not a compliment.

Claremont would continue on the book for nearly 30 more issues, so you'll get a fuller review next month. But for now, let's just say I'm not very impressed.

THE CARE OF SOULS: CULTIVATING A PASTOR'S HEART by Harold L. Senkbeil

To read most books about pastoring nowadays, you would think that the job isn't that different from being a CEO—all about leadership, fundraising, and growth strategies. And in its modern manifestation in the evangelical church, that's not entirely wrong. But what about pastoring, the role of shepherding the flock God has given you? How do you do that?

That's what Harold L. Senkbeil seeks to address in his helpful corrective, The Care of Souls, a book that wades as deeply into theological waters as most pastoral leadership books do in practical matters. In Senkbeil's understanding, the pastor is first and foremost a spiritual director, a teacher of God's Word whose responsibility it is to guide church members toward lives of discipleship. Pastoring, he would say, is not about marketing, it's about sanctification.

As a corrective to intensely practical church growth books like The Purpose-Driven Church and basically everything by Thom Rainer, which I've been known to accuse of being customer service manuals rather than biblical models, The Care of Souls is helpful counterweight. However, if those alternatives are heavy on practicality at the expense of theology, this one runs the opposite risk. After lengthy discursions on sanctification and discipleship, I often found myself wondering, "Ok, but how do you actually do that?"

Furthermore, while Senkbeil is upfront about it in his preface, this book is very Lutheran, to a degree that occasionally becomes distracting to those of us who don't share that background. He has an extremely high church understanding of the pastoral role (not to mention of communion), and that understanding occasionally colors the wisdom he offers—I'm not sure a lot of evangelical pastors could adopt some of his recommendations in their environments without getting run out of the church for being too uppity.

Overall, this was a somewhat confounding book, helpful in its aim but lacking in its execution. The pastorate should be understood from a more biblical and theological place—but I'm not sure this is the book that will start that revolution in thinking.

EX LIBRIS: 100 BOOKS TO READ AND REREAD by Michiko Kakutani

I do love a book about books. This one sees Michiko Kakutani, a longtime reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, offering up brief essays—usually three pages or so—about 100 books across the spectrum of fiction and nonfiction, the literary canon and recent favorites. What it largely ends up amounting to is a giant to-read list for any book lover—and there are worse things out there!

I read this book in large chunks, usually an hour at a time, and I can tell you from personal experience that is the wrong way to read it. This book is best consumed slowly, one chapter at a time over a period of a few months. I rushed through it, swallowing when I should have savored, and my reading experience was the poorer for it. Put it on your nightstand, read a chapter every night before bed, and you'll finish it in no time.

My poor reading strategy aside, this isn't the best version of this kind of book I've ever read. Kakutani, a prolific and talented writer, just scratches the surface with the snippets she gives on each book; I would have liked more, especially on literary behemoths like Moby Dick or Great Expectations. And while the variety of different books she chooses gives the book some unpredictability and diversity, it also makes you wonder what binds the list together. Are these her favorite 100 books? The best 100 books? The first 100 she thought of? Or, as seems to be the case, a list of 100 books carefully curated to help sell this book?

One final word: the design of this book, from its binding to the illustrations within to the layout, is gorgeous. That's not something I normally notice or care about, but you can't ignore ii in this case. It's clear a lot of thought and effort was put into making this a book you'd want to own, not just copy and paste the list.

A scattered, seemingly random review, I know...but hopefully an enjoyable one. And in all those ways, entirely appropriate for this book.

GOD SAVE TEXAS: A JOURNEY INTO THE SOUL OF THE LONE STAR STATE by Lawrence Wright

What is it exactly that makes Texas so irresistible?

That's the basic question motivating God Save Texas, a wide-ranging exploration of the state's cities, politics, and culture by award-winning writer Lawrence Wright. Written from a remove of healthy skepticism but a foundation of deep, almost unexplainable love, Wright seems almost confounded by the state he calls home, a place he just can't quit despite all the reasons he should. An unabashed liberal, Wright indicates several times that he's heard the siren songs of Hollywood and Manhattan and even answered them a time or two—he's a longtime contributor to the New Yorker and has written several screenplays—but nevertheless always feels like an outsider in those distant lands. He always comes home; he can't seem to help himself. Texas, like Thanos, is inevitable.

Reading less like a sequential nonfiction book than a series of related articles, Wright spends some chapters diving into Texas' most notable cities—Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Marfa—and others giving overviews of obvious Texas subjects (its presidents, its oil, its music). Throughout the book, Wright is both narrating and investigating the state's inconsistent identity and trying to figure out where it's going. Is Texas really going to turn blue one of these days, or is conservatism so deeply ingrained that its big cities will forever be islands of liberalism in a sea of red? Is Texas a rural frontier for cowboys or the gleaming home of astronauts and Elon Musk? If Texas is a law-and-order state, why is unabashed pothead Willie Nelson beloved by all?

It's undoubtedly a book with more questions than answers, but by asking the questions, Wright gives a vivid portrait of the state in all its shame and all its glory. Most importantly, for all his journalistic bona fides, it is written from a place of deep love for a state that doesn't always love him back. For anyone who loves this beautiful, glorious, maddening state, God Save Texas is a crucial read.

ESSENTIAL PUNISHER VOL. 2 by Mike Baron, Klaus Janson, Whilce Portacio, et. al

Following his introduction in Amazing Spider-Man #129, a string of guest appearances, and an initial miniseries, the post-Dark Knight Returns demand for grim-and-gritty comics led to the Punisher's first ongoing series, which would stretch for 104 issues before its eventual cancellation in 1995. With writer at the helm Mike Baron for all 20 of the initial issues, this is a straight crime comic, with almost no indication it exists in a Marvel Universe of superheroes, aliens, and the like.

Baron is a capable writer, though his staccato, noir-influenced pacing works better with some artists than others. He wears his law-and-order politics on his sleeve, but given that he was writing in 1987, those politics are of their time and a good fit for the character. Most importantly, he introduces the "guy in the chair" character of Microchip, the Punisher's trusty weapons procurer, computer hacker, and mechanic.

The stories in this volume are typically one or two-parters, with the notable exception of one lengthy arc in which the Punisher unsuccessfully tries to bring down the Kingpin. Seeing Frank Castle go up against a worthy adversary like this makes for a nice change of pace; I hope we'll see more confrontations between the two in future issues.

If you like crime books, this comic is probably a good fit for you. I'm on record as saying it's not for me, but I can see the appeal. Two more volumes to go!