Poll for What to Read in 2011

I'm trying to set some reading goals for this year, and I came up with the idea of reading the complete works of four authors, one per season. So far, I'm thinking Albert Camus, C.S. Lewis, and maybe Plato, or Ray Bradbury. Perhaps Susan Howe, even though I've read a couple of her books for classes.

Do you have any suggestions for which four authors I should choose?

Guards! Guards!

I listened to this story on the road between my family's home in Colorado and El Paso, Texas (my mother's hometown). This was our family's first encounter with Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Guards! Guards! had everyone in the van shrieking with laughter.

Terry Pratchett's style of humor is coarser than that of P.G. Wodehouse, more literary than that of Dave Barry, more heartfelt than that of Douglas Adams. The storyline - which involves, among other things, a simple but honest youth who was raised by dwarfs, the unsavory City Watch that he joins, a magic book stolen from a university library, and dragons - meandered somewhat, as if the author had toyed with various possible plot developments and decided to keep whatever bits amused him.

What endeared Guards! Guards! to me the most was the way that the author conveyed the wonder of books. Large collections of books, Pratchett says, can bend space and time. Someone initiated into the secret knowledge of librarians can venture into "L-space", which connects all libraries everywhere. His descriptions suited my sense that books in general, and libraries in particular, are magical.

(The recording from Isis audio books was excellent, too. Reader Nigel Planer brings to life a large cast of characters.)

I'm curious - are any of you acquainted with Pratchett's Discworld novels? If so, do you have a favorite? More generally, what do you read when you're looking for a good laugh?

Black Like Me [John Howard Griffin, 1960]

Rest at pale evening...

A tall slim tree...

Night coming tenderly

Black like me.

-from “Dream Variation” by Langston Hughes

This book instills a need to explain every assertion I will make, because I cannot be misunderstood at the expense of this man’s journey and the racial truths he explores. I have dallied in writing this review, partly in trepidation of not providing due justice to the topic. I fear that my writing will be too dull or flat and you will miss the intense emotions that accompany this narrative.

I will do my best.

In 1959, John Griffin leaves his family in their Texas home to travel as a black man, in the South, for six weeks. John first visits New Orleans, where he darkens his skin with medicine, sun lamps and dye. Then he moves on to Mississippi and then Atlanta. He is financially supported by Sepia Magazine, for the promise of writing articles detailing his discoveries. Those are the basics. This is an easy read in terms of syntax and vocabulary - but you may find yourself pausing to digest the information. Let me take a moment to encourage you to do that - don’t rush this subject matter. Because it seems easy to understand and this is a topic we’ve all heard much about, it would be easy to dismiss as nothing-new-here.

Now, since this is already lengthy, I will write of two incidents that struck home.

The sad irony-
White men would often write want ads expressing desire for sexual acts with black women because it was widely believed that black people were sexually immoral and engaged in abnormal sexual behavior. (Griffin gives a shocking account of hitching rides with white men at night and the explicit sexual interrogations he was sure to encounter from these ‘respectable’ men). The ads promised the greater the ‘perversion,’ the more money to be made. White men would post these advertisements in the black male restrooms and give a reward to any black man that brought a black woman willing to prostitute herself. I can say it no better than Griffin, “In these matters, the Negro has seen the backside of the white man too long to be shocked. He feels an indulgent superiority whenever he sees these evidences of the white man’s frailty...He cannot understand how the white man can show the most demeaning aspects of his nature and at the same time delude himself into thinking he is inherently superior. To the Negro who sees this element of the white man’s nature- and he sees it much more often than any other- the white man’s comments about the Negro’s alleged “immorality” ring maddeningly hollow” (pg. 82-3).

More irony -
“You afraid I’m a cop or something?” “The unpardonable had been said. The white man, despite his protestations of brotherhood, had made the first dirty suggestion that came to his mind. He was probably unaware of it but it escaped none of us. By the very tone of his question he revealed his contempt for us...He had become just like the whites he decried.” Ok, you guys, this got me. I really strive to find the right, moral balance to racial relations. I struggle often with what I should be thinking or feeling or doing in this area. Maybe this sounds foreign to you, but here in the ‘buckle of the Bible belt’ (Louisiana), racial tensions are very much present. Not in the same sense they were in 1959, of course. But in the way this paragraph describes, in the subtleties and nuances of our language, tone, posture, etc. And I -full of pride at my grand ideals of equality and education on the matter- find myself, as I leave the drive-thru, trying to remember what the black guy that took my order at McDonald’s looked like. And I can’t remember. But I can remember the white men and women and the black women. (I realize what this may sound like to someone from a more integrated area. And it gives me a strong desire to plead for understanding that I'm not racist, yadda yadda). Despite my outward spurning of prejudices, I grow increasingly disturbed with just how ingrained these beliefs may be. Will no amount of awareness lead to purification of thought and feeling ? At this point, I feel the best I can hope for is a strong grasp and consciousness of the issue.

There are many more gems in this book, and I recommend it. I am quite intrigued to hear of your stories, especially with the geographical differences among this group.

The Lantern Bearers

So I'm totally biased because I love Rosemary Sutcliff and have read this book before, but over Christmas break I decided to revisit it and was not disappointed. The Lantern Bearers is one of several in Sutcliff's Green Dolphin series that loosely follows a Romano-British family through the late Classical and early medieval periods. All of her books are beautifully written, but these in particular show an incredible craftsmanship and gravitas that I've found from few other authors.

The Lantern Bearers focuses specifically on a member of this family in Britain at the end of the Roman era. Aquila, a Decurion, watches the last legions sail from Rutupiae since they have been recalled to defend Rome one last time. Left in Britain, he is captured by the invading Anglo-Saxon-Jutish hordes, and the story unfolds from there.

The first and last chapters of the book are probably the most beautiful at least as far as writing style is concerned. Sutcliff has an amazing gift for bringing medieval Britain to life through the tiniest sensory details. Her Britain is luminous with everyday occurrences, the movements of people groups taking place in context of people's simple, mundane affairs.

Perhaps that's one reason why this book is so wonderful: as a reader, you are given a very keen sense for what it might have been like to watch one empire crumble and invading barbarians take over your homeland. Humanity's universal transience is upheld alongside the courage of individual men and women, forming a uniquely lovely  but bittersweet reading experience.

The Nibelungenlied

This is a version of the legend on which Wagner's ring cycle is based. A. T. Hatto has translated the thirteenth-century poem - purported to be the greatest of German medieval epics - into businesslike prose. The narration is brisk and direct, with no use of suspense. Indeed the grim ending is given away in the first chapter:

In the land of the Burgundians there grew up a maiden of high lineage, so fair that none in any land could be fairer. Her name was Kriemhild. ...The time came when she was wed with honour to a very brave warrior... What terrible vengeance she took on her nearest kinsmen for slaying him in days to come! For his one life there died many a mother's son.

The doomed husband-to-be is Prince Siegfried, who travels to Burgundy when he hears of Kriemhild's beauty. With his matchless strength and his cloak of invisibility, Siegfried helps Kriemhild's brother, King Gunther, to win the fierce Icelandic queen Brunhild (and subsequently to woo her, in a scene which pretty thoroughly offends both chivalrous and feminist sensibilities). In return for this help, King Gunther agrees that Siegfried may marry Kriemhild.

This happy state of affairs does not last, for Siegfried impudently stole a ring and a girdle from Brunhild while he was invisibly assisting Gunther. A spat between the two queens reveals Siegfried's possession of the items, which has unseemly implications. Brunhild's allies murder Siegfried in retaliation for the scandal. Kriemhild eventually achieves her revenge, and the epic ends with a bloodbath that leaves over a thousand dead.

Reading the Nibelungenlied gives a glimpse into an alien culture, a society in which it is common courtesy to crowd around and jostle strangers to show that they are welcome. What caught my attention was the poet's emphasis on clothes. Clothes are brought up constantly: for example, a wedding is shown to be a grand event because every guest is wearing brand-new clothes. Before anything important can happen, the first step seems to be to put on splendid clothes.

Clothes are important for us, too. But as far as I can tell, in the Nibelungenlied clothes are not valued for self-expression, or fashion even. Clothes are important solely and supremely as a signal of wealth; of status.

And status has weighty implications for medieval kings and their vassals. So maybe a lesson that can be drawn from the epic is the potential fragility of the feudal system. After all, the catalyst of the entire tragedy is Brunhild's confusion about Siegfried's social standing. Tampering even slightly with the network of loyalties that is supposed to maintain stability has violent consequences.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Now that the first semester of grad school is over (whoop whoop!), I thought I'd rejoin the conversation, too. Yesterday while I was sitting in the airport for seven hours thanks to a canceled flight to Oklahoma, I read A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller. It's a bleak futuristic novel set in a post-nuclear apocalypse North America. I generally don't read science fiction like this, but Dr. S recommended it when I was working on my senior project, so finally thought I'd give it a go.

The book is quite well-written as far as science fiction goes. It takes place in three sections, separated by time, over the course of which the human race repeats is nuclear mistake and blows itself up again. On the whole the book is quite grim. Humans carry not only their individual sins but the sins of the whole human race; the human race is doomed to repeat its futile search for perfection, becoming more and more jaded with the results of the pursuit of wealth and power until it destroys itself and starts over again.

Despite this pessimism, the book has a strong but very complicated thread of Christian theology. Its main characters are monks, dedicated to the preservation of human culture and learning through fallouts, wars, and plagues. Because of that, there's a lot of Latin in the book, and some of the story's most beautiful moments center on Christian imagery of crucifixion and redemption. At one point, the author makes the statement that humans can never be divine: we may have infinite power and wisdom, but we can never have infinite love, the third quality that makes God who He is (thankfully!).

Yet it's hard to know exactly what the author's position is toward Christianity. Does Christianity offer valid hope for a world full of human monsters? Or is it merely foolish idealism in the face of humanity's proven tendency toward evil? What's the use of hope if we're just going to blow ourselves up again anyway? Is the human race worth saving? The story doesn't provide easy answers to any of these questions, and on the whole I was left thoughtful but depressed.

On Bullshit

Since I was the one who insisted on reawakening this comatose blog, I'll be the one to break the ice, starting with a short, easy, and entertaining classic: Harry G. Frankfurt's On Bullshit.

If writing stuff like this is his job, then I want to be a philosophy professor at Princeton, too. This philosophical essay on bullshit traces the origins of the word, and words related to it, in the Oxford English Dictionary. It includes an amusing anecdote in which Wittgenstein ostensibly calls out a Cambridge college friend on her bullshit. He also referenced Augustine's essay, "Lying," which outlines eight different types of lies, none of which qualify as bullshit. (Frankfurt quotes Augustine to strengthen a distinction between lies and bullshit, but I mention it here because Augustine's essay sounds interesting in itself.)

According to Frankfurt, "the essence of bullshit" is a "lack of connection to a concern with truth" and an "indifference to how things really are" (33-34). The most memorable and important point he makes is his distinction between lies and bullshit: "The bullshitter...does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are" (61). [emphasis mine] Another defining element of bullshit is the purpose for which it is used-- to get away with something, or to convey a certain impression of oneself (23, 18).

Frankfurt leaves us to consider "the problem of understanding why our attitude toward bullshit is generally more benign than our attitude toward lying" (50).

Since bullshit is nearly as ubiquitous as the air we breathe, it would be difficult to take much offense to it. When exposed, a lie arouses a sense of betrayal and anger in those who were misled, whereas bullshit is just somewhat irritating. I think it's possible that all the bullshitters in the political realm exploit this to their advantage, scapegoating the liars so they can continue getting away with their bullshit.

Any thoughts on Frankfurt's question?

variety show

On our recent road trip to take my sister to university, I read The Case of the Late Pig, Police at the Funeral, and Tether's End, all Margery Allingham mysteries. The first two were good, but the last one was rather badly written. I'd be somewhat surprised if Allingham actually wrote it, but maybe she was just in a hurry.

Road trips are excellent occasions for doing a lot of reading. I also read Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung, a good, basic, Christian common sense book about making decisions. It's short, simple, and easy to read, so even if you're looking for a quick read, this would be an excellent one. His point is surprisingly basic. Gavin, I think you would find his analysis of modern youth culture interesting after Honors last year. He deals with contemporary college students' propensity for drifting in a refreshingly Biblical way.

Also on the road, I read aloud Dealing with Dragons, by Patricia C. Wrede. It's the first in a series of young adult fiction. Charmingly written, full of little witticisms. It pokes loving fun at fairytales. Another good light read (though, of course, much different from DeYoung's book!).

From here on out, it's the Norton Anthology and GRE prep books for me!

Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light

Leonard Shlain, a surgeon from California, began this project after visiting an art museum with his young daughter. He realized that in the cases of some modern works, he could not explain to her why they qualified as "art" at all! What, he wondered, was modern art trying to communicate, and why was so much of modern art difficult to comprehend?

Shlain concluded after extensive research that "the radical innovations of art embody the preverbal stages of new concepts" concerning the nature of reality. Art and Physics explores how different styles of art (from ancient times to the modern era) have treated space, time, and light; then compares the artistic vision to the work of scientists trying to grasp those same concepts. He believes that artists have often portrayed ideas about, for example, the nature of light or the relativity of space before physicists arrived at those same ideas.

If artists really are unknowingly creating works that anticipate cutting-edge physics, what could explain such prescience? (Pardon the pun.) That question pulls Shlain into metaphysical territory. He suggests that the existence of a universal mind -"an overarching, disembodied universal consciousness that binds and organizes the power generated by every person's thoughts" - could explain "how an artist can incorporate ideas into his or her work that have not as yet been discovered by physicists and that are certainly unknown to the general public."

The strengths of this book are that it is very readable and that it assembles incredibly wide-ranging material into a coherent narrative. However, I doubt that an expert in physics or in art would be entirely satisfied with Shlain's exposition. The book's subject is simply too broad for its thesis to be rigorously supported.

* * * *

I googled the author's name before posting this, and learned that Leonard Shlain died this year. He wrote three other books after Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light. Each has an ambitious title: The Alphabet Vs. The Goddess: the Conflict Between Word and Image; Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution; and Leonardo's Brain: the Left-Right Roots of Creativity (the third book will be published posthumously in 2010). It sounds like he was a remarkable person who enjoyed synthesizing information to get a big-picture perspective on the human story.

Funny in Farsi

One of my roommates this year is from Iran. It has been very interesting to hear her talk about her life in her home country. She loaned me a memoir by an woman who moved from Iran to America as a child. The book describes cultural clashes and family quirks in a lively and humorous way. Even serious topics, like the suspicion that Iranian immigrants were subjected to during the hostage crisis, are treated with a light touch. Reading Funny in Farsi was a pleasant way to learn a little bit more about Iran's culture.

Mystery Mile

Actually, I read this book about a week ago, but then I had to put a moratorium on book reading for awhile so that I could finish some other work. Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham is the second in her series of Albert Campion mysteries. Allingham's mysteries are somewhere on the food chain below Dorothy Sayers but above Agatha Christie, in my opinion. Her detective, Campion, is a hilarious fellow, very colorful, with an even more colorful sidekick, Lugg, who is the requisite manservant. Allingham's dialogue is pure joy to read. I read some online reviews that were less than complimentary of her ability to construct a good mystery plot; nevertheless, her books are excellent light reads. They're set in roughly the same time period as Sayers's mysteries and concern roughly the same social class, but with much less of the Austin-esque social commentary. I plan to read more when I have a chance.

The Perilous Gard

Amanda and Syneva recommended this book to me several years ago, but I never could get my hands on a copy of it until a friend of mine in Stillwater happened to mention it. I read it in an afternoon. The story is set in Elizabethan England (or the reign of Queen Mary, Elizabeth's predecessor, to be precise). Kate, the main character, is sent to a castle called the Perilous Gard for what paranoid Queen Mary decides is treason. The story unfolds from there. It's one of those excellent tales that both explains old legends and treats a world-within-a-world. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's written for young adult readers, but it combines historical fiction and mystery and is very well-written. At one point an unusual Gospel presentation is even made. A good quick read.

Geeks in Las Vegas

I read Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich, an old bestseller that was made into a movie, 21. I haven't seen the movie, but the book gave me a slight adrenaline rush as I entered the world of MIT students who beat the system at casinos by using their highly skilled card counting techniques to give themselves a statistical edge in blackjack. Over the course of a few years, the blackjack team raked in millions of dollars, and eventually the casinos caught on and barred them from returning. As a Harvard graduate, Mezrich has social connections with interesting people-- one of his acquaintances was on this blackjack team, and this year he published another book about the inside story of Facebook's origins by interviewing other people he knew. The story is highly entertaining and very well-written. I recommend it enthusiastically, with reservations; read it if you want a vivid picture of the modern equivalent of Babylon.

At the end of the book, there is an essay by the (real-life) main character, describing a basic card counting technique. It sounds simple, but it's no easy feat to track cards accurately through six decks while acting like a drunk novice to deflect suspicion.

When I visited Vegas, the only thing that interested me was taking pictures of the cool chandeliers and slot machines. I would not have done that if I realized how many cameras were tracking my every movement, and that people must have been eyeing me suspiciously until they realized I was just a silly, bored, underage girl-- no threat at all. The city is a twisted Neverland, for those who want to live in an endless frat party.

The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty

Just finished The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty last night. She's a prolific author, so it's a formidable collection. Her early stories are very similar to Flannery O'Connor's in some ways. Southern Gothic. She tends to give a gritty, depressing picture of normal life in the South. The small, isolated towns in which her stories are set give her the opportunity to explore the darker side of human nature. However, as her style develops, her style becomes more and more beautiful. Though she doesn't leave behind her dark thematic material, she treats it more gently, with more pathos. Her later stories have some really lovely moments in them. Her ability to weave similes and metaphors is unparalleled, and I went through my copy with a pencil underlining the best bits. Nevertheless, one has to take these stories a few at a time. Read a couple, then go find something a bit more cheerful.

The Most of P.G. Wodehouse (etc.)

First, as an aside: Last night some friends and I watched Secondhand Lions, which is a hilarious film except for the attempt at moral values in the middle. One of the characters tells another character just to "Believe!" in something. "It doesn't matter if it's true or not! Just believe!" was the mantra. That moment reminded me of The Screwtape Letters, where Screwtape plumes himself on the fact that evil has been able to convince humans just to "believe" without any regard for the truth of belief. The essentially wonderful thing about the Christian Gospel is that it is true, C.S. Lewis seems to be saying. Otherwise, what would be the point?

(Though he seems to undercut this in The Silver Chair, where Puddleglum declares to the witch that he's going to live like a Narnian whether or not there is a Narnia. A point for discussion?)

Anyway, last night I finished The Most of P.G. Wodehouse, a collection of several of his short stories plus a novel. A delightful read. His style draws you in and addicts you to its sheer light-heartedness. His characters are all completely laughable. My favorites are Jeeves and Wooster, of course, but the members of the Drones Club could be Wooster's twin brothers. I love Wodehouse's gentle satire of British aristocratic life. I rather wish someone with the same sort of humor could write similar satires about today's culture. Though perhaps today we have the opposite problem. P.G. Wodehouse slags off his young aristocrats for refusing to do any useful work, but in our American culture we seem to have glorified work to an extreme.

Pontius Pilate

This book by Paul Maier is one I bought at the McFarlin book sale for two dollars, and is billed as a "biographical novel." It blends both Biblical, historical, and traditional sources to paint a probable portrait of Pilate's life. The notes explain that several orthodox churches have a tradition of Pilate's wife Procula being an early convert and celebrate her as a saint, and the Ethiopian Orthodox actually have St. Pilate and St. Procula's day, indicating a belief that Pilate also converted. The book does not take a stand on whether they ultimately did, but the book does offer a large amount of accurate historical data about the rules of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius and the governorship of Pilate. It was interesting to read this one right after the Anne Rice book, they were complements from different perspectives.

Pilate has short interactions in the book with several Biblical figures, including Paul, the Centurion Cornelius (who, Maier notes, Pilate almost certainly would have met, given how few Roman officers were in Judea at that time), and of course Jesus. It gives context to many of the occurrences of the Bible, including the identities of the "Herodians" who succeeded Herod the Great, their actions, and Pilate's authority with respect to Christ's prosecution.

It makes the interesting theological point, through Paul, in fact, that the presence of Pilate was to indicate the guilt of Gentiles in the death of Christ. Based on this and a reference in the preface, I feel that Maier was trying very hard not to write anything that could be construed as anti-semitic, but nonetheless I think it is a legitimate point and a true interpretation. Though I do wonder what all of you think about this point and the method of its presentation. Actually, having delved slightly into the genre of religious fiction set in Biblical times, I was wondering what your opinions might be on that type of writing.

Certainly this is a recommendable book, though there is a lot more darkness in it, what with the Roman politics, Caligula, Tiberius, and all, than in many of the others. It is intensely interesting if you have a interest in ancient history.

The Phantom Tollbooth

This came at the very enthusiastic recommendations of Asher and Katie, and a sale at Borders.

It is one of the best children's books, the kind that still holds legitimate appeal for adults.

A bored and dull young boy gains entrance to another world though the Phantom Tollbooth, and there he learns some lessons from a very interesting set of characters, through a series of harrowing adventures. It bears similarities to Narnia, then, but without Christian undertones.

With humor, wit, and an impressive (but not pompous) vocabulary, it pokes fun at some illogical human tendencies that suck the enjoyment out of life, and teaches us to live wisely and richly.

Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

This is a book that Anne Rice, of vampire fame, wrote after reconverting to Catholicism. It is the story of Jesus and his family, when he was about seven years old, leaving Alexandria and traveling to Nazareth in the Holy Land after the death of Herod the Great. It draws on both Biblical, historical, and other sources, such as one reference to Christ creating birds out of clay while bored. Real, flying, living birds, which was startling to his friends and classmates, to say the least. At the beginning of the novel, he also curses a kid who bullies him and his cousins, causing that boy to instantly die, and then promptly brings him back from the dead.

It is interesting how Jesus' divine nature is handled in the book. Naturally, he is not omniscient, as that would make such a first person narrative almost impossible. But he does have power and instant theological knowledge, and he heals people at several points. I think Rice did a difficult job well and managed to not include anything very theologically questionable

The main plot of the book centers around Christ trying to discover the truth about the circumstances surrounding his birth, in particular the killing of the innocents, which, understandably, no one in his family will talk about to him, and none of the rabbis he meets wish to discuss with a small child. So it is a mystery novel, but one to which the reader knows the solution.

Overall, I recommend this book very highly. It is easy to read, well written, and contains some beautiful scenes both of family life and of religious devotion, though, at the same time, there are some very horrible things that happen in it during the turmoil surrounding Herod's death.

Hard Times

Hard Times is at heart Dickens' critique of economists and utilitarians, and so the book was at times slightly incensing, in that it seemed to portray people like me and Rachel as nothing but rational calculators, and this oversimplification and mischaracterization was certainly the genesis of a stream of disutility that led to sub-optimality in terms of both pure utility and productivity for me for the period of three days, four hours, and eighteen minutes, but I digress.

The criticism of early utilitarianism is much more potent than that of economics, as the main family in question, the Gradgrinds, bring up their children much as James Mill raised J.S. Mill, leading to horrific consequences in terms of their happiness and character. The book demonstrates the obvious effects of depriving children of play, imagination, and emotion. It seems that Dickens did not fully understand the economics of his day, and does not address their arguments abstractly, but does point out the flaws of early classical economics by offering clear examples of serious pollution and individuals caught in machinery. These, particularly the first, are now seen as inefficient and detrimental by economists, and of course the second is seen as just as horrible and barbaric as it always was. Thus what he lacks in abstract understanding Dickens makes up for in practical example.

The book is, overall, quite humorous and interesting, although not as good as either David Copperfield or Oliver Twist. It is certainly worth the time it takes to read it, though.

The Screwtape Letters

We seem to be doing well for variety on this blog....

I read The Screwtape Letters Friday evening as a change from Eudora Welty. Every time I read Screwtape, I come away scared. Ironic, since the book is all about the devil's ultimate defeat in the case of his "patient" and about the power of God to deliver a man from the clutches of the evil one. In some ways, I wonder if C.S. Lewis doesn't attribute too much to the devil's power and too little to our own sinful natures. Whichever the case, the book makes a strong warning against certain common Christian vices. I found the chapters or letters on prayer and on spiritually dry times to be particularly valuable. The need for us as believers to focus on Christ and solidly grounded on the truth of His Word is never more important.