Books I've Read

Index                  

In general I read nonfiction.  Mostly I read while on the bikes or steps at the gym -- it feels like productive multitasking, exercising and expanding body and mind at the same time.  My favorite books are mid-level technical books -- i.e. books that are written for an educated person but not necessarily an expert in the field of the book. Thus I can keep learning new things as I read.  Occasionally I'll read fiction, but only rarely.  

I basically add the books as I read them, so the most recent ones are at the end of this write-up.  The following alphabetically list will help you find a particular book in this list.  The letter grade is my opinion based on a lot of things, including my own subjectivity and tastes.  Click on a book title and it will jump you to its commentary.

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The Color Code:  A New Way to See Yourself, Your Relationships, and Life.  Dr. Taylor Hartman.  (New York: Scribner, 1998.  ISBN 0-684-84376-5.  283 pages.  $22.00)

    Of all the materials on personality traits and how people behave in life and interact with each other, Taylor Hartman's book is clearly the best.  The theory is simple.  We are each born with an innate "color" that defines our dominant personality and self-purpose.  Reds live for power.  Blues live for intimacy.  Whites live for peace.  Yellows live for fun.  Taylor (himself a Yellow) has described me as one of the Bluest people he knows.  This is truly, truly a wonderful book.  Certainly the best and most important of all the lot described on this page.  It is so good that Taylor and I have become personal friends after I read the book and began communicating with him.  Get it now and read it!  And check out the Color Code website www.thecolorcode.com.  Return to Index.

Biological Exuberance:  Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity.  Dr. Bruce Bagemihl.  (New York: St. Martin's, 1999.  ISBN 0-312-19239-8. 751 pages.) 

    If anyone ever says homosexuality isn't "natural," they need to read this book to re-evaluate their misperception of reality.  The book provides detailed account of not only homosexual activities, but "alternative" heterosexual activities (i.e., other than "just for reproduction") among mammals and birds.  The details are somewhat interesting (and somewhat voyeuristic in a way), but their main use in the larger sense would be to cite specific documented examples to contradict the idea that only reproductive sexuality is natural.  The book is long but easily organized by groups of animals and specific species.  Although I did read it cover-to-cover, one could easily learn from it on an as-needed basis, and it is must-have reference book for anyone seriously dealing with the social, moral, and theological aspects of sexuality. As Galileo Galilei once proved the Church wrong regarding the earth's centrality in the solar system, so Bruce Bagemihl may be a key scientist proving the fundamentalists wrong on God's gift of sexuality. (2000)  Return to Index.

Seaching for Memory:  The Brain, the Mind, and the Past.  Dr. Daniel L. Schacter.  (New York: Basic Books, 1996.  ISBN 0-465-07552-5.  349 pages.)

    This is Dan Schacter's first book on memory.  I had heard about The Seven Sins of Memory in a review, but decided to read the first book first.  It focuses on the details of how our memories work.  Dan is a professor of psychology at Harvard.  His writing level is just the level I enjoy reading -- detailed, technical, and intelligent, yet not so academic that one needs a Ph.D. in the subject to get anything out of it.  While Seven Sins explores the basic problems of memory's apparent malfunctions, Searching focuses more on the basics of how memory works.  It is a good blend of psychology and neuroscience.  I found his explorations of "recovered" memory of childhood trauma to be especially meaningful and important.  They were personally meaningful because this issue was so important in Jeffery's life, and even after much struggling with it I was never able to ascertain what had been historical fact and what had been psychological fiction.  Written in 1996, the book is just on the beginning stages of new scientific questioning of the recovered memory phenomenon that had been the hot topic of psychotherapy during the preceding decade, and it was refreshing to learn that Jeffery's struggles -- as well the doubts about what actually happened -- were not rare.   This is vitally important research because "recovered memory" continues to be a hot legal topic and continues to damage lives of both "victims" and "perpetrators."  The book should be required reading for every police officer, attorney, judge, jury member, or anyone else involved in a case involve child abuse or "molestation" that happened years ago. (10/2001)  Return to Index.

The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers.  Dr. Daniel L. Schacter.  (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2001.  ISBN 0-618-04019-6, 272 pp, $25.00)

   The book is very informative and up-to-date.  It talks about the ways that the human memory works and the ways that it sometimes appears to fail us.  The "seven sins" are transcience, absent-mindedness, blocking, misattribution, suggestibility, bias, and persistence.  After reading the book you get a better understanding of things like Alzheimer's disease and how parts of memory do and don't change as we age.  Perhaps even more important, it explores the subject of "suggestibility" and how our memories can sometimes "honestly" delude us into thinking that things happened when they in fact did not. The book discusses the relevance of this problem to various court proceedings, particularly involving children, and sheds yet-newer light on the trends of the 1990s to litigate based upon "recovered" memories.  I wish I could remember all the details of the book.  :) (11/2001)  Return to Index.

The Universe in a Nutshell.  Dr. Stephen Hawking. (New York: Bantam, 2001.  ISBN 0-553-80202-X.  208 pages.  $35.00)

    This book is fascinating.  It reads very quickly, even though it covers highly complex subjects and is written by one of our world's most brilliant people.  In the midst of explaining cosmology, Stephen's humor shines through as well.  When talking about Isaac Newton he quipped, "Newton occupied the Lucasian chair at Cambridge that I now hold, though it wasn't electrically operated in his time."  (Stephen uses a wheelchair.)  The book introduces many of the cutting-edge concepts of modern cosmology, including issues such as time travel.  I do feel like I have a better understanding of black holes, although some of the more novel ideas are still somewhat vague in my mind.  He introduces the concept of "imaginary time" but leaves it poorly explained.  As an engineer I know that reactive power is the "imaginary" component of complex power flow in a power system, and somehow this time component is related to the "real" time in which we live in a similar manner, but the book doesn't take it any further than that.  I long for greater detail and explanation on some of these subjects, including p-branes and extra dimensions that are curled up on themselves.  But I also understand that too detailed an explanation of such things would surely have made the book much more difficult to read, more tedious, and less enjoyable.  I think what I shall have to do soon is simply read the book again. (11/2001)  Return to Index.

Hearts in Atlantis.  Stephen King.  (New York: Pocket, 1999.  ISBN 0-7434-3621-0.  672 pages. $7.99)

    I seldom read fiction, but Sean highly recommended this book to me.  I was expecting it to have some really profound meaning, or at least expected it to relate to his life perhaps.  I didn't really find it.  It spans from 1960 the present with four major scenes, each with one or two characters connecting them.  Divorce causes children problems, playing cards excessively can lead to poor grades in college, and the Vietnam War led to psychological problems for many people involved.  Frankly, I think I summed the whole book up in those sentences.  I actually enjoyed reading it, and the characters are vivid and easy to envision.  But it stops short of carrying any real deep meaning, and that disappointed me.  Maybe that's why I don't read much fiction. (01/2002)  Return to Index.

Life Without Parole: Living in Prison Today.  Victor Hassine.  (Los Angeles: Roxbury, 1999.  ISBN 1-891487-13-2.  181 pages.  $35.00)

    Victor Hassine was a law school graduate who was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in a drug related offense.  He still maintains his innocence, but this is seldom discussed in the book and is not the premise or purpose of the book.  (It might color his attitude to some extent, however.)  Victor is atypical of inmates in many ways, including his education and the fact that he is a Jewish Egyptian immigrant (who moved to the US as a young child).  The book is easy to read and it gives a vivid description of life in prison, primarily in the Graterford Prison in Pennsylvania.  It is perhaps easy to read and follow because of unique combination of academic skills and inmate life.  Life Without Parole is neither a "woe is me" story of an inmate's life, nor a stale academic presentation of prison interviews. While this is overall a good thing, at times one does wish for a little more of one or both of these perspectives -- either a little more of Victor's personal thoughts and experiences or a little more information from other sources.  

    The major items of discussion are violence, drugs, sex, and politics on the inside.  There is also the general sense that all four of these things are deeply connected to one another, though one is left with a curiosity as to the extent of the overlap.  The vision of drugs causing violence, sex used in violent means, and politics based on corruption is clear -- and somewhat expected.  The part that seems missing is the situations that must surely arise (and may even be more common) when these do not overlap.  One would like to ask Victor to comment on some of these thoughts:  What about non-drug-based violence?  What about sex that comes from real affection rather than control? Is the most violent inmate always "top dog" or are there other signs of political gain and respect based on other issues such as manipulation, outside nonviolent connections, or even just personality traits such as charisma?  Discussion of these areas -- even if the discussion led to the conclusion that they were of only minor significance -- would clearly expand the comprehensiveness of the book.  Nonetheless, it does appear to give a good insight into life in prison.  Since I don't really know and have no plans to do this research first-hand, I sent a copy of the book to Keith so that he could give a better commentary on this.  (02/11/2002)  Return to Index.

I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need to Know.  Dr. Ellen Kirschman.  (New York: Guilford Press, 2000.  ISBN 1-57230-193-7.  284 pages.  $15.95)  

    I read most of this book when I was dating Rob.  It provides a good insight into some of the specific issues facing anyone who shares his life with a police officer.  But it also provides good insight into the traumas and problems that face people working in any one of the public service occupations, good thoughts that apply to any love relationship.  Ellen writes very well, and one could tell that she really knew the insides and outsides of police work and how it affects the cops in positive and negative ways.  (She is a psychologist who works primarily with police officers.)  As a former utility employee, I see the great insight in the Dilbert cartoon strip (whose author used to work for the phone company).  Just having heard so many of the ups and downs of police work from Rob, I could get that same sense hearing the stories of this book.  Even though my cop-relationship was not at all typical (both because he was chief and because most days we had 1,500 miles between us), there were many times when reading the stories of the book gave me insight into some of the things that so deeply concerned him, including the dysfunctions of police departments that are so hidden from us until we get a glimpse inside through our mates.  Return to Index.

Note to Publishers, Editors, and Authors

    The phrase "he or she" just doesn't work!  (I bring this up here because I noticed the problem from time to time in I Love a Cop, but the problem is all-too-rapidly infiltrating written works through a misguided sense of "inclusion.")  I understand the point.  The cop can be a man or woman and the spouse can be a man or woman.  But when we're reading the stories on our gym treadmills, "he or she" just throws the reader out of picturing a real person.  I can picture a woman and see in her traits of Rob.  I can picture a wife and see traits of myself.  I can picture a man and see traits of a female officer friend.  But when the officer or spouse become "he or she" I lose the vision of any person at all, and that distracts from the flow of the language and the focus of my brain.  Instead of concentrating on the person in the example, and the problem being discussed, I find myself picturing a transsexual nun that I know, and s/he has no desire to be a cop and probably wouldn't be a very good one.  

    My suggestion would be to alternate the stories, which are all fictionalized anyway "to protect the innocent."  Have one be a male officer with a wife, then a female officer with a husband, then a male officer with a husband, then a female officer with a wife, etc.  At least we'll be viewing real people as we picture the problems.  "He or she" may work in legal documents (though I still think it's awkward) but it simply doesn't work in personal stories.  (And my apologies to Ellen for using her book to rag on this issue.  The problem is generic, and hers was simply the first book since writing these reviews that contained the problem.)  Return to Index.

The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring: Visual Companion.  Jude Fisher.  (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.  ISBN 0-618-15401-9.  71 pages.  $19.95)

    This is a convenient picture book to help one easily understand the movie.  It is especially useful in learning the names of the characters which are unfortunately confusing at times because of their similiarites to one another.  (It baffles my mind as to why a linguist author would name the evil lord "Sauron" and the bad wizard "Sarumen" and then pronounce the words in the movie so they sound alike.)  And if you thought Aragorn and Boromir looked alike in the movie, hold their pictures up together in the book.  (Just because two men are cute doesn't mean you can't confuse them if you only see a movie once.)  Though I hope you've seen the movie already, if you haven't and you haven't read the original book, it might help to buy this picture book before you go to the theater.  Return to Index.

Sexual Diversity and Catholicism:  Toward the Development of Moral Theology.  Dr. Patricia Beattie Jung and Joseph Andrew Coray, Editors.  (Collegeville, MN:  The Liturgical Press, 2001.  ISBN 0-8146-4939-X.  311 pages.  $29.95.)  

    This is a compilation of 14 essays, generally on sexuality and Christianity, though only some actually explored the intersection.  (The better and more interesting articles were not necessarily the ones focused on the intersection.)  The essays are divided into four sections -- church teachings, the Bible, secular disciplines, and human experience. Some of the essays were extremely interesting.  Others were good but not excellent.  Generally most were too academic in style -- that is, they tended to be written in the boring "academese" of professional journals rather than the fluid style of really great scientific writers (such as Dr. Steven Hawking, discussed above).  The book would have been better if it had focused less on footnotes and more on communicating.  Nonetheless, much fascinating information was presented.  

    The essay with the most outrageous statements that I most directly disagree with (#2 by Dr. James Hannigan, a professor of moral theology) was in some ways the best because it helped me understand the bizarre medieval concept of "natural law" for the very first time.  The 11th essay (by Dr. Isiaah Crawford and Drian Zamboni, psychology professor and PhD student) is probably the most useful because it succinctly presents a comprehensive compendium of the most current research on sexuality, including interesting research various causal theories and on gay, lesbian, and heterosexual relationships.  This essay provides compelling evidence that gay relationships are essentially similar to heterosexual relationships in all areas of quality, satisfaction, and parenting ability.  Perhaps the book's most intriguing quote was that "research has suggested that both lesbian and gay male relationships are more cohesive, i.e., having a sense of interconnectedness, than heterosexual couples." (p. 230).  While the anecdotal evidence of my straight male friends and their difficulty relating to women would make this statement seem obvious, it clearly contradicts the common stereotype of gay relationships being somehow less than straight marriages.  (This quote is sighted as being from pages 185-230 of the book Lesbians and Gays in Couples and Families by Joan Laird, probably a book I will look into reading.)  

    In general, the information on sexuality was better presented than the information on theology.   There was some useful insight into Scripture, particularly for those not well versed in the subject.  On the other hand, the actual theology, when presented at all, tended to be tainted by either by the Roman Catholic concept that ethics and morality are somehow theological or by feminist propaganda.  (I willingly admit that I am one of those who shuts down further insight whenever I read of things blindly blamed on some mythical concept of "patriarchy.")  

    Another note to publishers, editors, and authors.  Footnotes should be useful and useable.  Endnotes, no matter how informative, are generally not useable.  Whatever valuable information is there tends to be missed, because it is just too difficult to flip back and forth between pages of a book (remember, I do most of my reading on an exercise bike at the gym).  We know there are two types of footnotes: (a) the ones that merely serve as citations for those who wish to further explore sources and/or to give credit to others, and (b) the ones that actually give further information or provide more detailed discussion.  The latter "b" type are, of course, by far the most important and useful.  They should be placed as footnotes so that we can read them (or ignore them) immediately while moving through the text.  The references and citations can well be placed at the end of the chapter or the book for use later on.  As for the new academic style of placing a name and date in parentheses -- such as "(Shirilau, 1999)" -- this is simply distracting, particularly when long lists of authors or publications are included.  This, too, should be avoided in good, easy-to-read (and therefore easy to understand) writing.  [03/28/2002]  Return to Index.

When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity During the Last Days of Rome.  Dr. Richard E. Rubenstein.  (San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1999.  ISBN 0-15-601315-0.  267 pages.  $14.00)

    This is simply a great book.  It had been recommended to me by Fr. Bruce LeBlanc, and I chose to bring it with me on my trip to Turkey and Italy.  I began reading it on Good Friday in Constantinople and finished on Easter Monday in Rome, which ended up to be the perfect timing.  I must admit that I was a bit suspicious based upon the title, thinking that it implied that Jesus wasn't God until the Church made Him such (which is, of course, a direct contraction to the Creeds the book explores), and therefore falsely assuming it may be one more of those trendy modern books trying to demythologize Jesus and negate basic Christianity.  I was wrong, and the book was excellent.  It was written by a Jewish professor of conflict resolution, and its clarity of being able to discuss the details of Christian theology, and the wars around such details, reminded me of the clarity that my Jewish professor of art history brought to medieval art (mostly deeply theological and Christian, of course) during undergraduate school. 

     Richard discusses the development of Trinitarian theology during the 300's, the role of various Christian and heretical bishops and priests, and the roles of the various emperors.  Most of this took place in or around Constantinople and Alexandria, but Rome was of course eventually involved.  It explores not only the theology of St. Athanasius and his archrival the heretic priest Arius, but also their actions, manipulations, and treachery.  It makes this whole period come alive and leaves one with a greater appreciation of the vital importance of this time in history and the great benefit the Church received as it came under the power of Constantine.  The unbiased presentation of the history, including its ugly parts, reminds us of two things:  (1) that saints are humans and are saints because of great things they did for the Kingdom of God, not for being perfect, and (2) that just as with the development of Israel in the Old Testament, so in the development of the New Israel, the Church, in its early times the goals of God were often championed by sinful people by questionable means.  

    Richard implies that he comes to a rather unconventional conclusion.  As with the title, this had me doubtful, but I found it not at all the case.  Although he does not take sides between Athanasius and Arius (a benefit of being a Jew while writing about such subjects), he does a good job of explaining the importance of the Mystery of the Incarnation expressed by the formulas of the Nicene Council of 325 and ratified by the Constantinopolitan Council of 381.  (Although these are called the first two Ecumenical Councils, we soon realize in the book that this is only because they had long-lasting effects in the proper direction, and that many, many councils of bishops were called during the time.)  The final paragraph of the book suggests that Islam's ease of acceptance in the Middle East was due to lack of true resolution of the Arian controversy.  While the Church has resolved the controversy at the theological level, perhaps it is true that the tension between Islam and Christianity for control of today's world is not at all unrelated to the tension between Arianism and Christianity 1700 years ago.  Ultimately we must decide whether we have a God Who walked on earth in saving Love or Who remains in heaven while we work out our own salvation.  

    Any Christian can learn a great deal, both historically and theologically, from this exciting book that is easy to read and understand in spite of its accurate coverage of complex issues and complicated situations.  [04/01/2002]  Return to Index.

The Soul of Sex: Cultivating Life as an Act of Love.  Dr. Thomas Moore.  (New York: Harper Collins, 1998.  ISBN 0-06-093095-0, 308 pages, $14.00)

    This book explores the connection between sexuality and spirituality.  Its basic premise is that our culture has so repressed sex that it has become polarized -- either rigidly and moralistically controlled, or pornographically expressed -- and that these outcomes are flip sides of the same coin.  Thomas explores the various Greek and Roman myths surrounding the sexual nature of the gods and goddesses, explaining how they represent various aspects of natural human sexuality.  He encourages us to allow these aspects into our lives.  The first half of the book is better, where he explores these myths and lets them speak for their dimensions of exuberant sexuality.  In the second half of the book he tries to pull it all together, and that does not work quite as well.  While I went through the book underlying many wonderful statements in the first half -- mostly about freeing sex from the bondage we place upon it -- the second half was more or less void of such highlights.  It is almost as if he retreats into our own cultural limitations as he tries to pull together what he had let flow more freely in the initial chapters.  [04/09/2002]  Return to Index.

Sham? Shame!: Inside the Electric Power Industry.  Jack Casazza.  (Alexandria, VA: Mandrill, 2001.  ISBN 1-931633-01-0.  179 pages)

    Jack is a retired utility executive and a fellow of the IEEE.  He comes at utility deregulation from essentially the same perspective as mine -- that it is a disastrous mistake.  The book is fiction, but it is very realistically.  Certainly it is one of those "the names have been changed to protect the guilty" exposes.  Unfortunately the story is basically true.  It shows how our nation has floundered billions of dollars through the incredible boondoggle of "restructuring" our electric industry.  As Jack's story unfolds, we see more and more mistakes made as key decisions about one of the engineering worlds marvels -- the electric power grid -- being made by people who have no technical understanding of it.  It goes from bad to worse as economists, power brokers, lawyers, and finally politicians make decisions without a clue as to what they are doing.  Unfortunately the story may be most interesting to those who already understand, because the book could give insight to everyone as to why their bills keep going up even when the lights are going out.   [04/11/2002]  Return to Index.

Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential.  Dr. Caroline Myss.  (New York: Harmony, 2001.  ISBN 0-517-70392-0.  431 pages.)

    Although I was intrigued by parts of the psychology of this book, I found myself unable to read it because the author lost all credibility through her continuous discussion of bizarre "spiritual" ideas.  I first tried to just skip over her discussion of pseudoscience like "energy fields" and chakras, and moved on to her discussion of personality archtypes.  It is a bit tedious because she has too many elaborate archetypes to easily assess which ones we can relate to.  Nonetheless, they were interesting.  She posits that we all have twelve archetypes underlying our personality.  I would contend that 12 might be an approximate number, but I find it bizarre that everyone would have exactly 12, of course I do not any slight bit of credence to the zodiac and astrology, as Caroline does (another point where she loses credibility).  I was actually looking forward to exploring which archetypes might apply to me, but then I came to the place where you select your twelve, put them face-down on cards, and draw them unseen to rank them into the various positions they play in your life.  That is not psychology, it is playing roulette with analysis.  This is the point where I put the book down for good.  

    I also totally misunderstood the title.  I assumed that the book was essentially about making contracts with God for the betterment of our life.  From the standpoint of being able to make our lives spiritually blessed, it wouldn't have even mattered exactly how the author perceived God.  But what Caroline is talking about is really strange.  She believes we met people in past lives and make contracts with them to carry out various advancements in each of our future lives.  

    Truly I was disappointed.  There was some insight into personality, but Caroline's consistent approach of drawing us into her weird "spirituality" ruins it.  At least I only paid discount price at Costco.  [05/01/2002]  Return to Index.

Love is Letting Go of Fear.  Dr. Gerald G. Jampolsky.  (Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 1979.  ISBN 0-89087-246-5.  131 pages.)    

    Jerry's book is easy to read and conveys a very important point in life -- that love is the most important thing, that fear is the opposite of love, and that forgiveness is the only way we can live in love.  The book is simple and the concept easy, although it is certainly a great example of "easier said than done."  Everyone could benefit from reading this book.  The drawings and the message are elementary, but it really is the basic things that count most in life.  I really do try to live my life the way Jerry presents it -- letting love lead to forgiveness and seeing others as needing love rather than being threats.  I'm not perfect at it of course, but struggle with it.  There are twelve "lessons" presented, all of which have the same basic theme.  The "lesson" structure is not important unless that is what how you grasp the message for yourself and internalize the attitudes presented.

    I must admit that I was concerned at first to learn the connection with A Course in Miracles, which I had always thought was sort of a New Age cult. My concern was no doubt heightened because of having just been overwhelmed by New Age junk in the previous book.  But this fear was decidedly unfounded.  I don't know if that is because my presumption about the Course in Miracles was erroneous or because Jerry's book doesn't delve into the deep New Age aspects of the course (if there are any).  In any event, it is a good book, I'm glad I read it, and I am going to pass it on to a friend.  [05/13/2002].  Return to Index.

Gay Cops.  Dr. Stephen H. Leinen.   (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993.  ISBN 0-8135-2000-2.  245 pages.)  

    Dr. Steve Leinen is a psychologist and a lieutenant in the NYPD.  He is straight and married to a woman, but felt compelled to provide this detailed record of gay police officers, their lives, and their troubles.  He had done similar academic work on racial minorities in the police force.  Steve's writing is very easy to follow, and it reads for the most part more like a documentary than an academic publication.  It is filled by the meticulous and articulate work of an academician that conveys a lot of information, but written in a style that makes you feel as if you know the various police officers he interviews and discusses.

    The research was done during the 1980's and is mostly limited to the NYPD and a few other agencies in the New York Metropolitan Area.  Since the officers being interviewed were often reminiscing into their past, many of the events portrayed were actually from the 1970's.  When reading the stories, one must keep this in mind.  It has a certain negative and depressing feel that -- one would hope -- was much more the culture then than it is now.  Our culture simply has become more open on the issue of homosexuality, and the idea of an openly gay policeman is no longer shocking or considered a violation of the stereotypes of either gays or cops.  We even occasionally see gay cops on television.

    While the work is exclusively focused within the police force, the issues are only tangentially connected with the law enforcement culture.  Too be sure, some of the specific problems are unique, but most of the feelings and overlying issues were common.  As I would read the story of this or that cop coming out to his family or at work, it reminded me so much of my own process of coming out at home and at the electric company where I worked at the time.  As many of the cops in the story reported, the fears are mostly unfounded, and things get much better after the burden of hiding is released.  But it was poignant to read these stories, and they were really well presented.  Anyone who is interested in understanding what it feels like to wrestle with disclosing one's sexuality, whether as a police officer or any other human being, would do well to read this book.

    Now it is time for a similar academic study to be undertaken -- perhaps even a repeat at NYPD -- so that a historical comparison of the 1980's and the 2000's could be made.  We have come a long way, and it is important to celebrate our advances without wallowing too much in the sorrows of the past.  [06/28/2002].  Return to Index.

Corrections in America: An Introduction.  Dr. Harry E. Allen and Dr. Clifford E. Simonsen.  (Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice-Hall.  ISBN 0-13-087726-3.  730 pages.)

    This was textbook for the Introduction to Corrections course I took at Citrus College.  It is really quite good.  Not what you'd call entertaining reading necessarily, but very informative.  College textbooks are expensive (this one was $80 or $90 as I recall), but there is a huge amount of information.  The book is well written and relatively easy to read.  If you want to learn a little about the history, theory, and practical sides of prison operations, this is where to start.  [06/2002]  Return to Index.

Flowers for Algernon.  Daniel Keyes.  (New York: Bantam.  ISBN 0-553-27450-3.  216 pages.)

     This is a fictional story about a mentally retarded man, Charlie Gordon, who becomes the first patient in an experimental medical process that eliminates mental retardation.  When I first began reading the book I started wondering whether this was possible and whether the story was perhaps based on some real research, even if seriously exaggerated.  Then I realized I was missing the point.  The book is not about neurobiology.  It is about life.

    Prior to working on Charlie, the research professors had worked on Algernon, a mouse who became superbly adept at running his mazes.  Charlie is a likeable mentally retarded man who works a mundane job at a bakery because the owner is loyal to him.  After the experiment is conducted, Charlie soon develops an incredible ability to learn.  He reads on a vast number of subjects, learns many languages, and becomes frustrated with the academics at the university because they can only see one narrow aspect of knowledge, not the broader picture like he can.  (Charlie becomes so bright that he can combine both the depth of academic training and the generalized view of most people and have a deep understanding of multiple subjects and their interactive natures.) 

    In the transition from moron to genius, Charlie looses much of his likeability.  He also struggles with the complexities of emotional life that were oblivious to him before.  Although he can quickly learn a new language or read a mathematical treatise and meaningfully debate its conclusions with the author, he has difficulty with friendship and love.  

    Sadly the process is found to be impermanent.  (In fact, Charlie is the one that discovers this when he starts dealing with the scientific side of his the research project conducted on him.)  Algernon loses his abilities first and then dies.  This is a very sad thing for Charlie, who had grown to love the mouse and also realizes that he will follow in the same path.  Eventually Charlie looses all he had gained.

    The importance of the story is its ability to demonstrate the important things in life and to juxtapose them with things we strive for or value.  What good is it to speak twelve languages if no one likes you?  Is it better to be happy and dull or frustrated and smart?  Is it better to have learned and forget or to never have learned at all?  Through the book we get insight into these questions because we grow to feel with Charlie and with those around him.  I would rather have a relationship work than be able to learn another language.  I would rather have a friend who was dull and nice than one who was smart and obnoxious.  (You're right, I did avoid saying which I would rather be myself because I really don't know.)  And I, like Charlie, would feel blessed to have learned many things, even if I had to end up losing them in the end.  A temporary gift is better than no gift at all.  [07/13/2002].  Return to Index.

Love, Honor & Respect: How to Confront Homosexual Bias and Violence in Christian Culture.  Rev. Robert J. Buchanan.   (Lincoln, NE:  Writers Club Press, 2000.  ISBN 0-595-13517-X.  164 pages.)

    This is an interesting book on the subject -- different from the many academic books and rather different than my own book Salvation, Scripture, and Sexuality.  Fr. Bob explores biblical and theological concepts at a very simple level for those in the gay community who do not know them or have blocked them out of their minds.  Likewise he explores some sexual issues and details of homosexuality at a very simple level for those within the Church who have never given it much thought.  (Sometimes I wonder about the necessity of exploring various physical aspects of sexuality in this book.)  I find it somewhat hard to estimate the book's ability to reach these audiences.

    The first sentence of the final chapter sums up not only this book, but also a very essential truth:  "The God of Christianity is not a God of hate, but a God of love."  This is the message that Fr. Bob tries to convey throughout the book.  He argues to Christians who fail to understand sexuality.  He argues it to gays who fail to understand Christianity.  It is a very important argument.  I am hardly a naive Christian who does not understand sexual issues nor an angry gay who has rejected God's Love, but unfortunately I meet far to many of both of these people.  I hope that this book would be helpful to them, more helpful, perhaps, than the more academic treatises on the subject.  [08/2002].  Return to Index.

Sacred Dying: Creating Rituals for Embracing the End of Life.  Megory Anderson.  (Roseville, CA: Prima, 2001.  ISBN 0-7615-3453-9.  364 pages.)

    Megory is an Episcopal theologian who has spent many of her recent years working with people who are dying -- that is working with people right at the time of death to help them have a meaningful, peaceful, and blessed transition to heaven.  Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the book is that it brings to light the vital importance of the last day or hour of one's life.  Megory shares many real stories from her ministry.  She tells of the people dying, of the family and friends surrounding them, and of the ways she helped them with the moment at hand.

    It is neither a medical book nor a psychological book.  Nor is it spiritual in the sense of theological or even the more subtle new-age "spiritual" stuff.  It is a book about helping the dying.  As she says many times, because she has to remind the people at a deathbed of this -- it is about the dying person.  The others will have their time later.  It is not particularly about grief; there are other books for that.  It is about taking the final hours and making them special for the dying person, which in turn will make them vitally powerful for those blessed to be there alive.  

    It brought to mind, of course, the vital energies of the day that Jeffery died.  Surely this single day is still the one that is burned deepest into my memory and my heart.  It is a day that I look back to when I need a sense of direction in my own life.  It is a day that I look back to when I wonder what life is all about.  It is a day that I look to when I need a sense of peace and balance and love.  I have always felt that Jeffery handled this event very well, and always know the deep spirituality that radiated from it, inspiring many people in their own life journeys.

    Yet by reading Megory's book I was able to release the one regret I carried with me -- that I left the room a few minutes before Jeffery actually died and allowed him to die alone, partly because of my own fears.  I had felt that perhaps Jeffery added me to the long list of people who abandoned him in life, just because of this final act.  And yet when I review these last minutes as I read through the book, I realize that all was done lovingly, openly, smoothly, and peacefully, that he was not abandoned, but freed and blessed to move on in his journey, and that by the time I shut the door he was on his way to heaven.

    In the nine years since then I have observed how many people die without preparation.  We are so concerned about the medical, and so afraid of the grief, that we don't give ourselves the opportunity to both bless our dying friends and be blessed by them.  This book gives some practical ideas.  None of them are magic.  They are drawn from many religious traditions.  There are many things to draw from, not in the sense of a recipe book, but in the sense of knowing basically what to do when the time comes.  Be there for the dying person.  Make the time sacred.  Make it about and for the dying person.  Other stuff -- everything else -- can wait.  Don't let the medical get in the way.  Don't let family issues get in the way -- either by bringing them up when they would both the dying or by refusing to allow them to surface when the dying person needs to release them.  Let love flow through the day, the hour, and the minute of death.  It is a beautiful thing.

    I would not trade the final minutes with Jeffery for any other moment in my life -- not the most fun we ever had, not the day we met, not the most important meeting I ever attended, not a graduation or a party or vacation.  We all have those opportunities with very special people around us -- our parents, our spouses, sometimes even children or friends.  Don't miss those blessings because of your schedule or your fears.  Just be there.  [09/01/2002].  Return to Index. 

In the Beginning: The Birth of the Living Universe.  Dr. John Gribbin.  (Boston, MA: Little Brown, 1993.  ISBN 0-316-32836-7.  274 pages.)

    John presents a fascinating case -- that the universe itself is a living entity.  The basic movement of the book is a development of the concept that things are just arbitrary.  Moving from the Big Bang forward, he explores the growth of the universe and the uniqueness of certain basic concepts.  Like the parameters of the physical laws.  They are certain values.  But why?  What if they were slightly changed?  They are exactly correct.  Even things like the exact relationship between the mass of the neutron and proton, which in turn cause certain atoms, like carbon, to be particularly stable products of nuclear fusion, which in turn produces this element in enough quantity for life as we know it to evolve.  Just this very aspect of the book is fascinating.  I had read the book several years ago, and pulled it out to re-read because I remembered some of these fascinating facts.  

    John takes the "Gaia Hypothesis" several steps further.  Gaia is the concept that the earth itself behaves as a living organism.  It is an interesting concept that basically depends on one's definition of "life."  He then expands as to why the galaxy is also a living organism (citing the spiral nature of it as being evidence of living forces at work).  Finally he concludes that the universe is a living organism, uniquely designed to reproduce itself by the creation of black holes from which arise other universes.  He even explains how a black hole created, say, by a large star could invert itself in another dimension creating another universe that was even bigger than our own universe, obviously trillions of times more massive than the star that made the black hole in the first place.

    The book dances around the theological issues.  He mentions the concept that this detailed precision is used by some as a proof of a creating God.  He doesn't go there, and one gets the feeling that he might be an atheist, but he doesn't drill that point home either nor make it obnoxious.  Personally, I think his argument of the living universe points yet many more fingers toward a Wonderful Creator.  If we marvel at how God could have made life on earth in all its abundance, how much more marvelous is it to think that all that we know in this whole creation of space, time, matter, and energy is just one of many living entities that perhaps share as much diversity based on differences in physical laws (which we consider absolutes in our universe) as earthly life has diversity based on differences in DNA codes.  Even if our universe is but one of many, one of billions, or one of quintillions, God is still the one who made all of this because of His Love, and His love of exuberant, flamboyant creativity.  That is really exciting!  [09/14/2002]  Return to Index.

The God of Hope and the End of the World.  Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne.  (New Haven, CT: Yale, 2002.  ISBN 0-300-09211-3.)

    And this book is a fitting sequel.  A group of theologians gathered to wrestle with issues of hope and the future in light of scientific discoveries about creation.  John Polkinghorne took on the job of presenting the results in a book designed to be available for the nonacademic.  It is a good book, at the level I like to read (e.g. complex enough that I really don't have a desire to dig into the true academic treatises condensed into this book).  It is a bit heavy, and sometimes he uses words that could have been replaced by simpler words.  In other words, I think the message is so important -- and ultimately relatively simple -- that I think it needs to be brought down one more intellectual level to reach yet another wider audience.  Actually, the subject should be brought down to the level of Sunday School and catechism.

    Fr. John is unabashedly Christian, and he maintains this consistently in the book.  He discusses the connection between the physical universe and the spiritual realm of heaven while avoiding the three common pitfalls that lead us away from the truth -- scientific atheism, evangelical apocolypticism, and new age spiritualism.  He deals with the Big Bang and the Big Crunch (or the Big Chill, taking no real scientific position as to whether the universe has enough mass to eventually collapse on itself since this is theologically irrelevant) without letting these beliefs distract from his belief in creationism (in the sense that God is Creator and Cause of the Big Bang, not in the narrow sense of "creationism" used in American politics to mean believing the Biblical account literally).  He stands firmly between the scientist who says facts can't prove God and the fundamentalist who says the Bible disproves science.  And the beauty is he doesn't really argue these points.  He simply states the truth and ignores those who would detract from it.  "God created the world, and we're learning how He did it with each new scientific discovery."

    And likewise he treats the Evangelicals and the New Agers in their distractions from ultimate reality.  I actually had thought by the title that the book would explore various theories of the end of the world -- premillennialism, postmillennialism, etc.  It doesn't.  He ignores those who would choose to turn Christianity into a science fiction story based on the Book of Revelation.  The book takes for granted that the eventual fate of the earth is incineration as the sun reaches its next life-stage, and it also takes for granted that this event is so far off in the future that it is irrelevant to any of living today or even to any future concept of human culture.  We have a God of hope, not a God of war.  Easter was a triumphant victory over death, and we don't need horses and plagues riding over earth to accomplish God's goals.  

    But just what is heaven?  This was the most fascinating part for me.  Most of what John said I already agreed with, and it was good to see a group of prominent theologians come to essentially the same conclusions.   I knew that heaven was external to the universe -- outside of our world of space-time and matter-energy.   I knew that when we died we left the universe of the Big Bang and entered into another part of creation, a part where God's Love was all-encompassing.  The most interesting insight I got, though, was that this realm was not necessarily timeless.  It might be external to our particular time dimension, so a resident of heaven might just as well be able to "look down" on 1492 and 2002, or even do so concurrently.  But that does not mean that it is without a flowing process, just as being external to space or matter doesn't mean we won't have identity there.  This is so logical, but I really never thought about it.  We always think of heaven having music, of course, and music can only exist with some sort of linear flow like what we call "time."  So heaven and God (and we) are everlasting in this new dimension, even though it does have flow.  And this is precisely why theologically the Big Crunch (where the universe recompresses into a super-hot singularity) or the Big Chill (where the universe expands to a super-cool uniformity) are irrelevant -- because at death we are eternal outside of this particular time dimension.

    Fr. John addresses Baptism and Eucharist as interactions between these worlds.  He doesn't go into great detail about this, but uses them as examples of the world of heaven and the world of the universe not being disconnected.  There are incarnational events.  Our own existence in the physical universe is an example of such.  But he does not let this fall into the pantheistic New Age trap.  We are here in this temporary world for a reason, and there is a reason why it is separate from the other eternal world.  One gets the sense that this reason is diversity.  It is only in this world of freedom, which must be temporary in nature if it is allowed to diverge from God's Love, where diversity can flourish and then be brought into the next world.  It all has to do with God wanting lovers, and in order to be lovers we must be free to choose love.  

    But it is not some endless trap of reincarnation.  Nor is it some means by which perfection is achieved.  The goal is not perfection, but love.  There is no need to come back and back again.  God creates, He blesses, He guides, He gives us freedom.  We make choices, some wise, some foolish, some loving, some hateful.  Finally we can choose heaven at our death.  Or we can choose hell.  The condition of heaven is living in the eternal and unshadowed presence of the God of Love.  This might frighten some to choose hell.  Yet again, the choice might be so obvious that hell is technically existent but factually empty.  We won't know until we die.  But we do know, categorically, that God is Love and God has great hope for all of creation, including us.  [09/21/2002].      Return to Index.

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