Book review: Comfort Detox by Erin M. Straza

The twentieth book I read in 2017 was Comfort Detox: Finding Freedom from Habits that Bind You by Erin M. Straza.  Straza's purpose in writing the book is to encourage readers to break out of our habits of inertia and seeking the path of least resistance to free ourselves to accomplish something with our time. 

Straza's story begins with a trip to India where the poverty and misery she witnessed put her through a process she calls the Shredding: a shock to the system that opened her eyes to the Question (she's big on capitalizing) of what she is doing with her life.  Unfortunately, she discovered that a truthful answer to the Question was mostly seeking her own comfort, to maximize her pleasure and minimize her pain, or even her effort, a response that she finds antithetical to the biblical instructions of Jesus to his disciples. 

Straza's response is to go through a comfort detoxification process, consciously rejecting convenience, emotional and professional safety, perfectionism, avoidance, entitlement, and indulgence.  Only when that is done does she advocate pursuing the positive goals of compassion, trust, humility, engagement, and contentment.

There are two reasons I don't like this book.  One is that it is written almost as a sort of study guide for a group.  Step 1 of the detox is to gather a group of like-minded friends to go through this process with you.  It seems that self-improvement, like going to a public bathroom, is something that girls ought to do in a herd.  More importantly, though, at the end of the process, Straza suggests dedicating onself to a Cause (that's my capitalization, not hers) to get uncomfortable in the pursuit of and suggests charities focused on providing education for girls around the world.  Perhaps I shouldn't find that surprising, given the setting of her Shredding, but for a book which approaches life from a strictly Christian viewpoint, it's disappointing that the end goal is a very mainstream, socially-acceptable cause.  If our lives are radically different because Jesus went outside his comfort zone, shouldn't out goals be different as well? 

The PG-13 Martian

An update to my review of The Martian: There is now a Classroom Edition which tones down the language to less paint-peeling levels!  This is great news since, as I pointed out, this is a great book to hand to to a twelve-year-old to get them interested in science (and reading!) if it weren't for the F-bombs.  Buying a copy for my kids now.

Book review: What's in a Phrase? by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

The nineteenth book I read in 2017 was What's in a Phrase?: Pausing Where Scripture Gives You Pause by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre.  The author, a professor at Berkeley (!), indulges in a little lectio divina, "pausing" not on a whole passage, or even a whole sentence, but, as she says, on an arresting phrase and teasing out devotional meaning from it.

One thing I found very odd was that McEntyre often pauses to discuss the etymology and tease out alternate meanings of the English word in the biblical text, as if the author's original intent could have extended to the words chosen by a translator into a language that didn't even exist yet.  I suppose one's view of inspiration could extend even to word choice in various translations, but the highest views of the Bible with which I am aware limit themselves to the original texts.  Examining the various meanings of the word 'consider' in English tells me nothing about the usage of the Hebrew word for which it was chosen as a substitute.

Overall, this book got to be a little too much for me.  It would, doubtless, have been more rewarding if I had grazed through it over a period of weeks rather than starting at the beginning and continuing until I reached the end.  An index by scripture reference, rather than by topic, would contribute to such sampling, as the reader could turn to McEntyre's insights as they brush against the same parts of the Bible.

Like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, this book will leave you with a better taste in your mouth if you dip into it sparingly rather than inhaling the whole thing in one sitting.  Despite my rushed pace, however, one line remained in my mind as worth the price of admission: When asked to write her spiritual autobiography in six words, the author inscribed, "Eat the manna.  More will come."

Book review: Out of the Ashes by Anthony Esolen

The seventeenth book I read in 2017 is Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding America Culture by Anthony Esolen.  It is one of a recent spate of jeremiads, along with Rod Dreher's The Benedict Option and Charles J. Chaput's Strangers in a Strange Land, which call the Christian faithful to intentional countercultural living in the age of Obama and Obergefell.

Esolen, a literature professor and translator of Dante, bemoans the state of public schooling, higher education, church architecture, sexual behavior, craftsmanship, childhood recreation, and more in contemporary America, and it is hard to disagree with him on many of these points.  There seems to be wide, if vague, agreement that things aren't as good as they used to be; witness Donald Trump's surprisingly successful campaign to Make America Great Again.

There are caveats, however.  Firstly, one cannot ignore the unseemliness of a white male looking back to a time when whiteness and maleness were even more privileged than they are now and calling it Good.  This is perhaps an unfair observation -- I don't believe that Esolen is motivated by prejudice -- but it is one that raises immediate distrust in the minds of those who would have been at an extreme disadvantage in those Golden Days of the 1950s.

Secondly, both the subtitle of the book and Esolen's ongoing comparison of Now to Then imply that the American culture which the author desires to rebuild matters: that is, that the rescue of what he sees as American civilization is the most important issue of the day.  This is an unexamined view that denigrates the experience of the church outside America.  While I would agree that the American experiment has been good for Christianity, especially in the realm of advancing religious liberty, to imply that it is necessary, or even desirable, is, in my opinion, to make an idol of one's nation or politics.  Christianity flourished after the fall of Christendom and has shown most admirable in places and situations where it is out of favor or even outlawed.  Whether or not "American culture" is rebuilt to Esolen's specifications, the Church Universal will persevere.

Esolen's answer to the problems of societal decay he diagnoses is the taking up of the batons dropped by American society by Christian communities.  This is a top-down remedy favorable to Esolen's own faith community of Roman Catholicism.  The remaining members of the prophetic triumvirate, Dreher and Chaput, are Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic, respectively, which I don't think is a coincidence.  Both are hierarchical organizations ready and willing to step in place of secular government.  As an Evangelical Protestant, however, I am more leery of authority, even when it appears to be bearing gifts.

Book review: The Ultimate Guys' Body Book by Walt Larimore

American Girl has a pair of girls' guides to puberty that Faith loved.  Finding an equivalent for boys was a more difficult task.  I picked up a couple that I felt went quite a bit too far for eleven-year-olds.  Finally, I decided to try this book, The Ultimate Guys' Body Book by Dr. Walt Larimore, the seventeenth book I read in 2017.

Arranged as a series of thirty questions ostensibly posed by a stand-in for the reader, the text is accompanied by friendly, cartoon-style illustrations.  This is not a sex-ed book, so there are no anatomical drawings; the most explicit art depicts a boy staring down the waistband of his boxers (for question 18: "Is having only one testicle okay?").  The largest part of the book deals with the seminal question of adolescence -- Am I normal? -- and gives a comforting answer of "almost certainly."  

It also covers basic health questions about sleep, obesity, hygiene, and (oddly to me, as a former teen girl -- must be a guy thing) how to get buff.   Larimore writes from a Christian perspective, so he comes down strongly against extramarital sex and pornography, cautiously against tattoos and piercings, and reassuringly neutral on masturbation.   There are Scripture quotations in every chapter, some of which are a bit tenuous (in particular, referencing Jabez's prayer to enlarge his territory in the chapter on growth spurts), but also hilariously including Psalm 38:7 in the chapter on jock itch.

I hope that this can serve the purpose with Eric that American Girl's Care and Keeping of You books did with Faith: something for him to use as a private reference as he begins the process of puberty without dumping too many extraneous worries on him. 

Book review: Facing the Facts by Stan and Brenna Jones

The sixteenth book I read in 2017 was Facing the Facts: The Truth about Sex and You by Stan and Brenna Jones.  This book is the fourth in a Christian sex-ed series meant to guide children from preschool through age fourteen.  I skipped over the first two books but have picked up these last two for use in homeschooling.

This book, designed for kids from age 11 to 14, has detailed anatomical drawings of male and female sex organs and describes their function. Separate chapters detail the process of puberty in boys and girls, and another covers conception, pregnancy, and childbirth.  The final four chapters give reasons not to engage in premarital sex, with some limited information on sexually-transmitted diseases and birth control methods, mostly to highlight the dangers of the former and unreliability of the latter.