September Reading Log

 

This was a month spent with books that required some extra time and concentration, which meant fewer pages read and more days where laziness had me drifting away from books and toward the siren song of TikTok and YouTube. Nevertheless, there's a sense of accomplishment that comes with this month's log...two classics checked off the list, 40+ comics read, a favorite kids' book, and a new pastoral favorite. Take a look! 

DIARY OF A PASTOR'S SOUL by M. Craig Barnes

I picked this up on a whim from the clearance section at Half Price Books, enticed by the title and vaguely aware that I'd heard of it from somewhere (thanks Jeff Gravens!) What I didn't know then would become clear within the first 20 pages: that this would become one of my favorite books I've ever read.

Written as a fictional memoir, Diary of a Pastor's Soul contains first-person snippets from the final year of a pastor's congregational ministry. As this imaginary pastor chronicles that year, when he is simultaneously doing the daily work of church ministry while also tying up his career, the reader gets tremendous insight into the joys and trials of life for a minister.

An overused phrase these days is, "I feel seen," something you say when it seems like someone has peered right into your soul, when you've been truly noticed after a lengthy time toiling in obscurity. Reading Diary of a Pastor's Soul, I felt seen by the author, who truly speaks the language of pastors. He narrates not only the pragmatic realities of the profession—the committee meetings, the budgetary concerns, the ins and outs of event planning—but also the deep, spiritual toll it takes, the divine calling that draws people into ministry and keeps them awake at night.

I don't know whether laypeople will appreciate this book to the degree I did, but it is absolutely required reading for clergy, a book that supplants even Eugene Peterson's masterful The Pastor in my estimation. The 15 minutes I spent in my office every morning reading Diary of a Pastor's Soul were sometimes the best part of my day. It is a book I will return to again and again for as long as the Lord lets me remain in his service.

THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS by John Bunyan

The Pilgrim's Progress is often regarded as the most important work of theological literature ever written. It has been translated into more than 200 languages, has never fallen out of print since its initial publication in 1678, and shaped the thoughts and works of writers from Charles Dickens to Herman Melville to C.S. Lewis. So given its reputation and influence, I've always been a little surprised that it was never required reading for my undergraduate degree or in seminary.

I owe those professors a thank you letter.

Now, there can be no disputing the importance of The Pilgrim's Progress in sharing the gospel. Written as an allegorical tale of the path to salvation,  the novel brought Scripture to life by turning systematic theology into a quest narrative. It tells the story of an everyman named Christian and his journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, followed by a similar journey undertaken by his wife and children. Accompanied by friends with names like Faithful and Hopfeul and assailed by everyone from Ignorance to Hypocrisy, Christian encounters all manner of temptations and difficulties before finally making it through the Narrow Gate and into the Land of Beulah.

As you might imagine, anyone who thought The Chronicles of Narnia were a little on the nose would find utterly Bunyan exhausting, and you can count me in that group. It doesn't take long before you stop reading this as a story and start immediately translating every line through a theological filter, which then naturally makes you lose track of the plot. And as for those who find this more readable than the New Testament...how??? I'll take Paul at his wordiest over Bunyan, whose style I found dry as a Phoenix afternoon.

I don't question the value of The Pilgrim's Progress to the kingdom, and maybe I'd have had more appreciation for it if I'd read it in the context of a class, where study and discussion would accompany the reading. But as it is, my experience was a lot like running a marathon: glad to cross it off my bucket list, but I have no intention of ever doing it again.

THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES: THE FINCA VIGIA EDITION by Ernest Hemingway

One of my quirks is that, for better and for worse, I am a completist. I don't want a band's greatest hits, I want their whole discography. I don't want to watch the most popular Marvel movies, I want to watch all the Marvel movies. And I don't want to read an author's selected works, I want to read their complete works. So when I decided to spend the month with arguably America's greatest short stories writer, I went whole hog: The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition.

This edition, first published in 1987, contains 70 stories in total—49 which were initially published in 1938's First Forty-Nine Stories, 14 more which were published subsequently, and 7 which were seeing the light of day for the first time with the Finca Vigia edition. Some run as little as 3 pages; the longest is more of a novella at 50 pages. And, as you might expect from a complete collection, it's a mixed bag in terms of quality.

In spots, this is Hemingway at its finest. Often associated with the "iceberg theory" of writing, Hemingway's sparse, unadorned style gives you little on the surface while containing a wealth of meaning and pathos beneath. My favorite story of his, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is a classic example of this—a simple story about a man in an empty bar that leaves the reader aching with melancholy. Similarly, "The Battler," "Snows of Kilimanjaro," and "Hills Like White Elephants" are masterful tales that highlight Hemingway's brilliance.

When you work your way through all 70 of these stories, the stories can start to feel repetitive, even ponderous—another war story? Another bullfighting story? And, not surprisingly, the best stuff is almost exclusively found in the the first 49 stories he and his editor has seen fit to publish in his lifetime, making the last third of the book a bit of a slog at times. But throughout the book, readers like me who aren't naturally drawn to short stories over novels will marvel at Hemingway's ability to create well-rounded characters, interesting scenarios, and resonant themes in just a few pages.

It's a cliché among literary critics that Hemingway was a better short story writer than a novelist. You probably don't need to read all 70 of his stories to decide whether you agree—but I'm happy to give you my top 10!

JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH by Roald Dahl

More bedtime magic, courtesy of legendary children's author Roald Dahl. This beloved story tells the story of James Henry Trotter, a mistreated orphan boy who, after being given some magical crystals by a mysterious stranger, accidentally spills them close to a nearby fruit tree and awakes to find a peach the size of a house. Upon entering the giant peach, he encounters a host of friendly, life-sized insects, and the peach rolls (and eventually is carried by seagulls) to a series of zany adventures.

If you didn't read this as a child and that summary didn't reel you in, I question your sense of wonder. This book is a pure delight, one that my kids loved even more than the Charlie Bucket books last month. And indeed, while Charlie and the Choclate Factory has thus far had the most and best adaptations to film, I think James and the Giant Peach may be a superior book, quicker to get moving and with a more vivid cast of characters. I loved every moment reading this story, and was as sad to finish it as my kids were. A classic, and for good reason.

ESSENTIAL X-MEN VOL. 3-4 by Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, Paul Smith, John Romita, Jr., et al.

These were actually rereads for me—coming off of the excitement from Deadpool & Wolverine, I decided it was time to dive back into my <gulp> 11 volumes of Essential X-Men and I needed a refresher on where I left off with America's favorite mutants. So below is my review from September 2020, the first time I read these books:

In the 1980s, no comic was bigger than Uncanny X-Men. Propelled by soap operatic melodrama, cool costumes and powers, and Chris Claremont's world-building, mutants carved out their own corner of the Marvel Universe, one to which readers swarmed in droves. Essential X-Men Vol. 3-4 lays the foundation for that popularity, building upon stories like The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past even as it moves boldly into the future.

The highlight of this period is the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, printed in its entirety in vol. 4. The story tells of a televangelist who uses his platform to advocate for the elimination of all mutants .While X-Men titles had flirted with social commentary dating back to the 1960s, this is the story that most clearly establishes the mutants-as-oppressed-minorities metaphor that would come to define the book. And, while dated in some respects, the story holds up pretty well.

These books also see the introduction of Rogue, the power-stealing mutant who makes her debut as a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants only to eventually switch sides and join the X-Men; the Morlocks, a society of mutant outcasts living underground; and Madelynn Pryor, a mysterious Jean Grey lookalike whom Cyclops impulsively marries (with consequences in future issues.) Other story developments include Storm's metamorphosis from innocent fish out of water to battle-hardened killer, Magneto's shift from villain to antihero, and the maturation of Kitty Pryde from novice to full-fledged X-Man.

These stories are not as crucial to X-Men lore as the ones told by Claremont and John Byrne in Essential X-Men Vol. 2, but they're still plenty of fun, and more imaginative than much of what was coming out in the same time period. For X-Men fans wanting to see the expansion of the mutant world before that mythology became convoluted and overwhelming, these are key issues.

A Bottle of Kindness (Friday Devotional)

 

And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

- Matthew 10:42

A few days ago, I was out for an early morning run around the block. I had earbuds in and, with the sun not yet up, didn’t expect to see anybody else before I was finished. So I was a little startled when I faintly heard somebody calling out to me over the sound of the podcast I was listening to.

Taking my earbuds out and turning around, I saw a teenager sitting across the street by a stop sign waiting for the school bus. Reaching into his backpack, he pulled out a water bottle and held it out.

“’Scuse me,” he said. “Need some?”

At the time, I politely declined and carried on with my run. But I’ve got to tell you, that little gesture from a kid I’d never met before and haven’t seen since has stuck with me for a week now. He didn’t know me. I didn’t ask him for help. I didn’t even initially pay any attention to him. But he thought he had something to offer, and he didn’t hesitate to reach out with the little he had to give.

I wonder what the world would be like if more of us made our way through life that way. What kind of witness to the gospel could we offer if we operated out of a spirit of generosity instead of anxiety, if we saw every interaction as a chance to do some good? Imagine the impact believers could make if, instead of hesitantly keeping our distance, we dove headfirst into lives of kindness.

A bottle of water isn’t much. But offered in the right spirit, it can make all the difference.

Being Bitten and Bearing Burdens (Friday Devotional)

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

 

- Galatians 6:2

 

At a church fellowship this past weekend, I took a bunch of the kids outside to run off some energy with a game of baseball. Before long, my son hit the ball into a line of bushes along the side of the building. So, dutifully, I got down on my hands and knees to retrieve the ball.

 

…and stuck my left hand directly in a fire ant pile.

 

As you might expect, it took all of 2 seconds for me to realize what I’d done. I frantically started swatting at the one hand with the other, trying to brush all the ants off as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, by the time I was all clear, I’d acquired 18 ant bites, most under my watch band and wedding ring. The damage is done—all that’s left to do now is periodically apply some hydrocortisone cream and wait for the itching to stop.

 

That experience got me thinking about the way problems typically crop up in life—problems far more severe than a few bug bites. When you are hit with a crisis, there is usually a moment of intensity—the appointment when the doctor tells you the cancer is spreading, the meeting when you find out you’ve been laid off, the day you are handed divorce papers. And when we think of hard times, we usually think of those intense moments, when your hand is wrist deep in the ant pile.

 

But in truth, life’s greatest trials last longer than those instances of peak intensity. As shocking as those singular moments are, they are inevitably followed by much longer periods of adjustment, treatment, and, hopefully, healing. After the funeral comes the grieving, after the break-up comes the loneliness, after the car accident comes the endless calls with insurance adjustors. Reminder after reminder of what you’ve experienced, a constant itching.

 

Pain in this world, sadly, is far from momentary—it ebbs and flows, but is never absent for long. So in the face of this sobering reality, it is incumbent upon God’s people to shoulder each other’s loads, to bear one another’s burdens. God called his children to come together as the church so that, as we await Christ’s return, we would not be overwhelmed by the brokenness of the world in the meantime. Your brothers and sisters in faith are here to lift you up when you struggle, even as you are called to do the same for them.

 

Trying to pursue faith as a solo endeavor is a fool’s errand, not to mention an act of disobedience. Your church family needs you, and you need them—not just when life is biting you, but to help you heal when you’ve been bitten. Life is too long and suffering too real to persevere alone—turn to those God has given you to help and to be helped.

The Spiritual Slide (Friday Devotional)

 

Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord.

- Romans 12:11

At my son’s weekly baseball practice, the coach always starts with the same drill, a “diamond run” around the bases. The drill ends, as you might imagine, with the players running back to home plate from third base—once you touch home, you’re done with the drill and you get to the back of the line.

Inevitably, Andrew always ends the drill the same way—while simply stepping on home plate would satisfy the coach, he insists on sliding every time. I always know 10 minutes into practice that his uniform will need to be washed, because he ends every diamond drill with a cloud of dust. His enthusiasm just can’t be contained.

Even as adults, there are times when we feel that same kind of excitement, such that we just can’t contain ourselves—go to a sports bar on a Sunday afternoon if you don’t believe me. Grown-ups can be enthusiastic too, and sometimes we set aside our polite restraint in the name of passion.

The Bible calls us to that same kind of enthusiasm about our faith. While culturally the church often aims for dignity and decorum, there ought to also be room for unfiltered joy. Jesus has given us salvation in him, the promise of eternal life, the hope of glory. You have reason to celebrate, reason to praise—so don’t muzzle yourself!

It’s fine to just step on home plate every now and then; the run still counts the same. But you should see the smiles all around when you slide.

Not My Job? (Friday Devotional)

 

But wanting to vindicate himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and took off, leaving him half dead.  Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.”

Luke 10:29-32

On August 8, 1982, the Boston Red Sox were playing an afternoon game at Fenway Park. Suddenly a foul ball screamed past the first base dugout and left fielder Jim Rice heard a sickening crunch. Looking around the corner of the dugout into the stands, Rice saw 4-year-old Jonathan Keane bleeding profusely from his head. Realizing that it would take several minutes for park EMTs to get to the scene, the ballplayer sprang into action. Rice leaped over the railing into the stands, cradled the young fan into his arms, and carried the boy into the dugout, where he received immediate attention from the team's medical staff.

Within just a few minutes, Jonathan was rushed to the hospital, where doctors credited Rice with saving the boy’s life. Jim Rice played the rest of the game in a blood-stained uniform, a reminder of the turn the day had taken. His job may have been to play left field for the Red Sox, but his calling that day was far higher.

When you see someone who needs help, it’s far too easy to default to the priest and the Levite’s position in the story of the Good Samaritan—to ignore the need. Whether because you’re in a rush to do something else, because you’re concerned about your own well-being, or simply because your heart is hardened in that moment to your neighbor’s need, the easiest thing in the world is to pass by. After all, it’s not your job to help.

But what Jesus reminds us—what Jim Rice displayed that day in 1982—is that sometimes your calling is more important than your job. Sometimes God puts you right in the path of someone in need, not so you can pass but so you can step in. Because sometimes the person best suited to help is not the one with all the education and training—sometimes it’s the person who’s right there.

Helping your neighbor may not be your job at any given moment. But according to Jesus, it’s always your calling.

August Reading Log

Y'all, I read The Power Broker this month, all 1,169 pages of it (that's of actual reading material; there's another 100+ pages of bibliography and index). 50 pages a day every day but Sundays, with only 3 days all month when I gave myself a break. All so I could have this log ready by Labor Day.

So yeah, it's a short log this go-'round, just three entries. But make no mistake, I did a LOT of reading last month. Take a look!

THE POWER BROKER by Robert Caro

During his presidency, Donald Trump popularized the idea of the "deep state," a cadre of unelected bureaucrats who do all the real governing and stymie any attempts by elected leaders to subvert their efforts. Some embraced the idea, others dismissed it as a conspiracy theory, still others believed the truth was probably somewhere in between.

In New York City, from 1927 to 1968, Robert Moses was the Deep State personified. Never once elected to office—not for lack of trying—Moses acquired and consolidated power through a host of appointed positions until he was the de facto czar of the city. Nothing was built in NYC for 4 decades without his approval, and the success of every mayor largely depended on their relationship with him. Ostensibly an urban planner and parks commissioner, Moses ruled the city with an iron fist.

The Power Broker is Robert Caro's now-legendary biography of Moses, an exhaustive account of the man's rise and fall and an explanation of why New York City is laid out the way it is. Told with both a writer's flair for the dramatic and a journalist's thirst for evidence, The Power Broker did more than anything to make the general public aware of Moses, forever shaping his legacy.

The verdict? In Caro's telling, Moses must be admired for his ability to Get Things Done, building at a rate unmatched before or since. But his methods, his narrow-minded vision (for example, he was so fixated on building highways that he essentially ruined the city's public transportation), and his disregard for the poor ultimately make him feel like a supervillain as you read The Power Broker. Year after year, Moses wielded incomparable power in the city, and year after year people suffered so that another bridge, another highway, and another park could go up.

Plowing through The Power Broker is a herculean feat for a reader—not only is it long, but in places it's pretty dense, especially for those (like me) who are not native New Yorkers. But admiration for Caro's airtight research typically overpowers any threat of boredom or overwhelm, and Caro has a gift for balancing the more tedious sections of the book with juicy conflicts, such as Moses' Dickensian relationship with his brother Paul. This book not only won Caro the Pulitzer Prize, it gave him the credibility to write his multivolume biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, arguably the finest historical writing of the last 50 years. Any student of history owes it to themselves to read The Power Broker—it lives up to the hype.

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY by Roald Dahl
CHARLIE AND THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR by Roald Dahl

My big kids have officially hit the ages where we've moved from picture books to chapter books for bedtime reading. So this month, following a successful showing of 1971's Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I decided to introduce them to the classic book it's based on. And then after they liked it, it was on to the sequel!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the whimsical story of a poor boy's tour through the most magical candy factory imaginable. When the factory's owner, the enigmatic Willie Wonka, issues invitations for a few lucky individuals to tour his heretofore secret abode, the destitute Charlie Bucket is one of the lucky winners. But when the tour begins, he sees that Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory is more than anyone bargained for, a "world of pure imagination," as the movie puts it—and, for children with hearts less pure than his, danger.

If you've seen the original film (the less said about the 2005 Johnny Depp version, the better), you've got a good idea of the story beats; the movie's a pretty faithful adaptation. Like all Roald Dahl books, this one is brimming with imagination, along with just a hint of menace. It's a classic for a reason.

I wish I could say the same of the sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, an ill-conceived, tedious story that only occasionally hints at the magic of its predecessor. Picking up right where the previous book left off, it hurtles Charlie, Wonka, and the entire Bucket family into space aboard Wonka's magical glass elevator, where they encounter everything from aliens to a a giant space hotel to the President of the United States (via telephone). Where the first book is silly in a charming way, this one is just kind of dumb, aiming for laughs and usually falling short. Things get better when they finally return to the chocolate factory for a few chapters of aging and de-aging the grandparents with Wonka-Vite and Vita-Wonk, but by that point I was mostly just counting down to the end.

While one of these books was much better than the other, both proved that Roald Dahl remains a read-aloud favorite for good reason. The kids were begging for "more Charlie" every night, and that did their reader dad's heart good!

EAST OF WEST VOL. 1-10 by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta

While I read most of this series back in 2017, it hadn't reached its conclusion yet at that point, and I'd always wondered how Hickman and Dragotta managed to tie up the loose ends in those last dozen issues. So, at a rate of 2 issues per day, I spent most of the month in the dystopian world of the Chosen, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and the dystopian sci-fi Western version of America they inhabit.

Here comes the summary, and buckle up— as usual for a Jonathan Hickman project, it's a lot. The world we are given is one in which the United States is divided into 6 dueling nations: the Union, the Confederacy, the Republic of Texas, the PRA (a Maoist nation of Chinese exiles), the Endless Nation (Native Americans), and the Kingdom of New Orleans. Each of these nations has a representative who believes in the Message, an apocryphal text building upon the Book of Revelation that prophesies how the end of the world will come. The Chosen serve the Horsemen of the Apocalypse...or at least three of them. The problem is that Death, one of those Horsemen, long ago married and had a child with one of the Chosen and is now at odds with the followers of the Message, including his fellow Horsemen. He and his son, the Beast of the Apocalypse, now seek to avert the end of the world that everyone else is seeking to bring about.

If that was a lot to take in, know that it was equally hard to summarize. But here's what matters: East of West mixes the aesthetic of a spaghetti western with sci-fi, adds in some Game of Thrones-style palace intrigue, and tosses in biblical prophecy for a ride as thrilling as it is complex. The cast of characters is large and compelling, the twists are unexpected and exciting, and the dynamic art is a perfect match for the story.

East of West is the kind of story independent comics ought to be telling, one so visual that it wouldn't work in prose but so driven by words that it would lose something onscreen. If you miss watching Game of Thrones, this would make a great replacement.

SUPERGIRL: WOMAN OF TOMORROW by Tom King and Bilquis Evely

When a young girl's father is murdered, she vows revenge on the killer and dedicates her life to that pursuit. When Kara Zor-El's dog Krypto is kidnapped by that same murderer, she joins the girl in her quest. And as the two make their way across the universe together, they both learn a little something about trauma, purpose, and hope.

Longtime readers of this log will not be surprised to hear that I liked a Tom King series; in my opinion he's the best writer in comics today (and when he's on his A game, I don't think it's particularly close.) But this story is notable for the way King moves away from certain devices that, by his own admission, had started to become crutches—there are no 9-panel grids here, no art by Mitch Gerards, no confessionals to camera. Indeed, at a surface level this is a pretty straightforward action-adventure story, a simple revenge quest.

But beneath the surface, King is doing some of the best character work of his career, sharing a story that effectively differentiates Kara from her famous cousin, showing her to be a tougher, more traumatized, less pristine hero than Kal without diminishing her in any way. With young Ruthye as the tale's narrator, the reader is kept at a remove from Kara, meaning we pick up on these things through story rather than inner monologue. And Ruthye herself evolves as the story progresses, with Supergirl's heroic influence building on her issue by issue.

As great as King is, a word must also be said about Bilquis Evely's art, which is gorgeous throughout. Vaguely recalling the kind of fantasy artwork you might see in a Tor paperback, it's intricate, colorful, and dynamic, ensuring that the story always comes first, with the character work happening under the surface. I look forward to seeing what Evely will work on next; she's got to be in high demand after the success of this series.

By the end of the book, this was probably my second favorite Tom King series ever (Mister Miracle, my favorite miniseries of all time, has a lock on #1). Word is that DC Studios is looking to adapt this into a feature film, and I can see why. Highly recommended.