Out of My Cocoon

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Out of My Cocoon

Seventy-one isn't really old today, not when more and more people are living to be 100 or older. But it's old enough to know that I'm nearer the end of my life than its beginning, that the sand is running through the hourglass of time faster than ever. I've lived long enough to learn a few lessons and realize how much more there is to learn, long enough to ponder many questions and arrive at a few humble conclusions.

I grew up in the warm, safe, insulated cocoon of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I attended only Adventist schools. My parents, a lab tech and a nurse, worked in Adventist hospitals. I was provided with all the answers to life's questions. Our church had "the truth." I married an Adventist minister. After ten years of pastoring, he entered administrative work and served on every level of church organization. We spent 15 years as missionaries in the Far East. I have seen my share of church politics and clay feet, but I have also known many godly, dedicated people

Today I still love my church and deeply appreciate the truth it does have, but I have humbly realized that no one has all the truth except God. In many ways I received an excellent education in church schools, but I was not taught to think for myself. I was over 50 before events conspired to open my mind to new ideas. On this blog I plan to share my musings about how this change took place.

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Books I'm Reading in 2008

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon. Starting out with dessert this year! I thought the Father Tim saga was finished with her last book, but here he returns to his birthplace and discovers many missing pieces from his childhood. These have been some of the best stories I’ve read – they leave one with such a good, warm feeling. Lots of spiritual lessons.

Come Be My Light: the Private Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta” Mother Teresa, Brian Kotodiwjchuk, ed. and commentary. I have long admired Mother Teresa and this book made a great impression on me. She tells of being filled with a love for souls when taking her first Communion at the age of 5 ½ and determining that she wanted to consecrate her life to God as a missionary at the age of 12. She entered the Loreto sisters in Ireland at 18 and a year later sailed for Calcutta to serve as a teaching nun. Nine years later she made her final vows. She later made a secret vow to give God anything He asked. When she went on a retreat at the age of 36 she had three visions, each stronger than the last, in which she heard God’s call to satiate the thirst of Jesus on the cross (which she called a thirst for souls) by leaving the convent and going into the “dark holes” in the slums, where India’s poorest of the poor suffered, and bringing God’s light to them. Finally, two years later, she was given permission to start her new mission. Clad in a simple sari, carrying only five rupees, she left the security of the convent and set out with sheer faith in God. Until that time she had felt a deep sense of God’s presence, but from then on she experienced a sense of emptiness and darkness that lasted for the rest of her life, causing her much pain and sorrow, which she kept hidden under a cheerful exterior. She eventually came to believe that she was sharing Jesus’ feelings of abandonment on the cross, and that in those to whom she ministered she was ministering to Jesus. There were some things that were alien to my Protestant soul, such as referring to herself as a “victim” of Jesus, calling herself a “spouse” of Jesus, and longing to “immolate” herself for Jesus. I also have difficulty with the Catholic desire to suffer for God and finding fulfillment in suffering. I prefer to believe God wants us to find joy in serving Him and in surrendering our lives to Him. As Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”

The End is Near – Again by Randy Roberts. Does the fact that Jesus’ disciples expected him to return in their lifetime, that our great-grandparents, grandparents, parents and we ourselves, as young persons, all thought that we would never have a chance to grow up, get married and have a lifework before Jesus’ return, that He would surely return in our lifetimes, that every great war or disaster was a sign that His coming was imminent – does this lead one to question what it means that “He is coming soon”? Roberts, senior pastor of Loma Linda University Church, redirects our focus from “when?” and “what signs?” to “Who?” we wait for and “How?” we are to watch and be ready.

Misquoting Jesus: the Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D Ehrman. No original manuscripts of the NT survive, and the thousands of manuscripts we do have access to have many “textual variants” – more variants than there are actual words in the NT! Textual critic Ehrman demonstrates two causes for variants: accidental errors and theologically motivated changes. In the first two centuries copies were, for the most part, made by those few Christians who could read and write instead of trained scribes, and they were likely to make accidental errors arising from sleepiness, inattention, skipping a line, etc. Ehrman also, however, points out a number of instances where it has been determined that changes in the text were purposefully made to bolster a particular theological view. He gives the principles which skilled text critics use in deciding which reading is more likely to be the original. Newer translations have relied on this knowledge, but there are several cases where heated disputes have so far failed to establish a concensus opinion. This book should give pause to anyone who insists on reading the Bible literally, although anyone who does, does so selectively. Fascinating and readable.

Breath for the Bones - Art, Imagination and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith by Luci Shaw. A Christmas gift from Shelley, our pastor’s wife and fellow bookworm.

God Laughs & Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right by David James Duncan, an Adventist-raised, nature-loving, environmentalist, Northwest writer/philosopher, who inveighs against the environment-destroying, war-making, fundamentalist and evangelical-supported (with which he classes Adventists) Bush administration. His title is from a sermon by one of his heroes, Meister Eckhart. I especially enjoyed his last two chapters. His conclusion that “non-fiction” is really fiction, because our recall of any event in the past is distorted by our imperfect perceptions, has been verified anytime our family gets together to share memories! The final chapter is pure mysticism.

The New Year’s Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini. Her warm and enjoyable latest quilt novel about the Bergstrom family and the futility of long-held enmities.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner. This story of Afghanistan covers the period from when the Soviets left and the country descended into tribal chaos with war lords fighting each other, through the Taliban takeover, to the beginning of the US/Taliban conflict. It is the story of two women in a patriarchal society, when the modern freedom for women taught by the Russians disappeared under the Taliban and Sharia law, and demonstrates the worst excesses of men who considered wives as completely under their domination. Well told but horrifying.

Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. Smart, funny, insightful – Anne Lamott was an alcoholic, drugged hippy for many years. Then she found faith and has spent the last 20 years sober. She shares her daily struggles to grow in grace and faith.

Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality by Rob Bell. This book was recommended by someone on a Spectrum blog. It is a balanced (for the most part), Christian high view of sex that acknowledges its powerful physical aspects while claiming that we are more than our physical urges.

What’s So Great About Christianity? by Dinesh D’Souza. A Christian response to atheist attacks on Christianity. I almost didn’t read this because I thought he was from the ultra-conservative Christian Right. His thesis is that Christianity explains what modern science has discovered better than atheism. He believes that evolution (the science), as opposed to Darwinism (the philosophy) and intelligent design can be integrated, although he doesn’t accept six-day creation. He says modern day science grew out of a Christian foundation. The Big Bang theory and the anthropic principle of modern astronomy and physics are opposed to atheistic beliefs. He asserts that atheist regimes (which he applies to Nazism and Communism) are responsible for far more mass murders and genocide than Christianity, although I think he somewhat whitewashes the Christian responsibility for causing wars. Without Christianity, Western civilization and its moral values such as free will, unselfishness and altruism would eventually cease to exist.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. A best-seller well worth reading. She is a very entertaining author with a witty and sometimes satirical style. This is the story of her family’s decision to move from Tucson, where almost no food was locally grown and the underground aquifer was being depleted, to her husband’s inherited old farm in Virginia, to spend a year eating only locally produced, in-season, organic food, most of it grown themselves. She not only praises the superior flavor and nutrients of such food, but also exposes the practices of large farming corporations which deplete the soil, cause erosion, use horrendous amounts of petroleum in fertilizing and transportation, and force small farms out of business. Anyone who questions the value of more expensive organic foods should read this book.

Take the Risk by Ben Carson, MD.

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew by Bart D Ehrman. According to this pre-eminent scholar of early Christianity and manuscripts, there was nearly as wide a variety of beliefs and doctrines in the early church as there is today. The many different groups all claimed to be the true faith and defended their beliefs and railed against the beliefs of others through the written word. Some of the major groups included the Ebionites, who believed that to be a Christian you must also become a Jew and that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary who was adopted by God at his baptism; the Marcionites, who believed that Paul taught the Jewish laws had been done away with, that the God of the Jews was an inferior God and Jesus was the son of a better God who came to save people from the vengeful Jewish God, and that Jesus only appeared to be a real human; and the Gnostics, who also believed that Jesus was a spirit without a real, material body, who came to give knowledge about the cosmic accident that had created this world and imprisoned some spirits within bodies - knowledge (gnosis) which would help those who received it to live spiritually “above” their material bodies and eventually be reunited with the spiritual world from which they originally came. Because what he calls the “proto-orthodox” group believed that the Jewish faith had predicted the coming of Messiah, or Christ, which connection with antiquity gave them more authenticity within the Greco-Roman world, they eventually won out over the other groups and managed to destroy most of the polemic writing against the proto-orthodox group. We only know about it because of the orthodox’ polemic writing against the other groups, and through some of their recently discovered manuscripts.

The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. If anyone saw me driving down the road laughing hysterically, I was probably listening to this audio book. Bryson has such a witty way of writing, and he covers every conceivable thing you’d ever want to know about the English language, from its word origins and eccentric spelling, to failed attempts to regularize spelling and curse words, and praises English as the most rich and diverse language on earth.

Three Cups of Tea by David Relin and Greg Mortensen. Greg grew up as an MK in then Tanganyika (now Tanzania). He became a mountain climber and in an aborted attempt to scale K2, the highest peak in the world, he became lost from his porter on the descent and stumbled half alive into a tiny alpine village in Baltistan, where the villagers nursed him back to health. He wanted to do something to return their kindness and they pleaded for a school for their children, who were not served by the distant central government of Pakistan. That was the beginning of his lifelong work to promote education and improvement in the lives of primitive, but essentially wise, villagers throughout the mountainous regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. So far he has built about 60 schools and numerous water projects and health clinics, promoting a different picture of Americans than people in those countries have seen in our wars in the region. Very exciting.

The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs. Jacobs, who grew up in a secular Jewish family, is also the author of The Know-It-All about his experience of reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. After the birth of his first son, he began to think he needed to explore faith to be a better father. So he decided to spend one year with the Bible, trying to follow all the rules in it – and, of course, writing about it for his next book! He made a list of 700+ rules (combining those that were duplicates) that he found, beginning with the one in Genesis, “Be fruitful and multiply.” After several months of unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant, he and his wife decided on in vitro fertilization and she became pregnant with twins. His biblical year ends with the circumcision of those twin boys. Another of his goals was to explore literalism and he concluded that no one follows the Bible literally, but even literalists pick and choose which parts they take literally. He spent the first nine months in the Old Testament and the last three in the New. He had a panel of biblical advisors and visited Israel (where he met one of the few Samaritans left in the world), Jerry Falwell, a snake-handling pastor, and read hundreds of books about religion and all forms of Christianity. As he neared the end of the year he began to panic that he might not find the answers he was looking for, and remarked, “I haven’t talked to a Seventh-day Adventist yet – what if they have the answer?” But he concluded that his life had been changed in several ways. He intended to continue keeping the Sabbath, praying, and wearing white clothes more often! His writing is full of understated humor, such as the time he tried to build a booth in his living room to keep the Feast of Booths, and his efforts throughout to battle lust, lying, and pride.

Why Women Should Rule the World by DeeDee Myers. As Bill Clinton’s press secretary and the first woman to hold this position, Myers speculates, “If we were in charge, things might actually change. Instead of posturing, we’d have cooperation. Instead of gridlock, we’d have progress. Instead of a shouting match, we’d have a conversation – a very long conversation, but a conversation nonetheless.” She talks about the strong, capable women who were her role models, about the underappreciated strengths, skills and experiences women bring to the public square which make a real difference for the better, and about the many obstacles and attitudes, both male and female, that stand in the way of women fulfilling their potential. Great book!

Ten Miles From the Nearest Sin by Norma Bork. I found this book on the “LLU Authors” shelf at the University Bookstore and read it in two days. A novel about child sexual abuse and how it affects succeeding generations, it is set in mildly disguised Adventist institutions in Silver Spring, Maryland and Angwin, California. Quite a gripping story – not hard to see why an Adventist publishing house wouldn’t publish such a very frank and graphic book, though.

Quaker Summer by Lisa Samson. Awarded “Novel of the Year” by Women of Faith, this book was advertised on my library newsletter. It’s the story of a Christian woman, married to a doctor, who has everything she could want in material things, but feels something is missing. She discovers real joy through service and learns to forgive herself for her cruelty as a teenager. Good book.

Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sex Orientation by Glenn Wilson and Qazi Rahman. The first book to bring together and summarize an overview of the tremendous amount of current research into the cause of homosexuality. It’s supposedly in terms the general reader can understand, although some medical background is definitely helpful. I had already heard about most of this research, but the book goes into a great deal more detail. One thing that I didn’t know – research so far shows only 2-3.5% male homosexuality (and very little bisexuality) and .5-1.5% lesbianism (about half of which is bisexuality), but this is stable across many cultures. It goes into the methods of determining homosexuality: how people label themselves, sexual behavior, self-reported sexual feelings and dreams, and clinical measurement of sexual response, of which the latter two are most accurate. It details the pretty thorough discrediting of the social influence theory. “Gay genes” are believed to contribute less than half to sexual orientation variance. The effects of fluctuation in prenatal sex hormones on the developing brain has been shown through physical and brain differences, as well as the fraternal birth order effect in male homosexuals (about one in seven has several older brothers; the implication is that some mothers’ immune systems recognize male hormones as foreign substances and build up antibodies to them over succeeding male pregnancies). And childhood non-gender-conforming behavior is a strong marker for adult male homosexuality (about 75%); somewhat less so for lesbianism.

Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America by Steven Waldman. Both conservative and liberal Christians, says Waldman, have tried to claim the support of our founding fathers for their own viewpoints. The author shines a bright, balanced, and well-documented spotlight on the real motives and understanding of religious liberty of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The best book I’ve read on this topic.

Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain by Martha Sherrill. The fascinating story of a strong individualist in Japan, a very conformist society, Morie Sawataishi, and his wife, Kitako, a rich, well-educated girl from Tokyo. Morie takes his wife to live in the primitive northern Snow Country where he is an engineer building hydroelectric plants. Here he begins his life hobby of raising Akitas, a Japanese breed of dogs that was nearly wiped out during WWII. As their number begins to grow and command high prices, his personal ethic leads him to give his puppies away, and Kitako learns to do all her housework and cooking under rural conditions, with constant company, mostly dog-lovers, dropping by. Morie, wholly fixated on his dogs, is indifferent to his wife’s unhappiness and his children’s needs, until near the end of his long life. Kitako survives and finally finds happiness in living in the rural area.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. A novel about the (real) Sarajevo Haggadah, a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in 15th century Spain and saved from destruction during the shelling of Sarajevo libraries. Hanna, a rare books expert from Australia, who is asked to analyze it and arrange proper conservation protection, traces its imaginary history from minute clues found in the manuscript. Very interesting and informative.

The Winding Ways Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini. The latest in this engrossing quilt novel series updates the lives of the Elm Creek Quilters. More dessert reading!

Malachy McCourt’s History of Ireland. Now I know why they call ‘em the Fighting Irish! They’ve been fighting for millennia! Back in the Celtic days, the tribes fought with each other and against Norwegian and Norman invaders. Then, as these invaders became assimilated with the native Celts, they fought together against the control of England and the Protestant Scots. With a good mixture of Irish/Scots/English/Dutch heritage, I often feel an internal battleground, but I have the most empathy for the embattled Irish and the most antipathy for the high and mighty English, although that was the background of my gentle, beloved maternal grandmother. It seems that my ancestors, the MacLoughlin high kings (Ard Ri) of Ireland, were perhaps not as illustrious characters, though, as the O’Neills and O’Donnels. I learned more about patriots/political heroes such as Wolfe Tone, Daniel O’Connell, Charles Parnell, Michael Davitt, Douglas Hyde and Eamon deValera and gained a greater appreciation of Irish cultural achievements. It reminds me of the tape of Celtic songs and dances that we bought on our first furlough trip through Ireland and played until it was worn out. Interesting to learn the role Bill Clinton played in bring peace to troubled Northern Ireland.

I Don’t Believe in Atheists by Chris Hedges. This is one of the books discussed on the Spectrum book club. Hedges, the son of a Presbyterian minister, likens modern activist atheists like Hitchens, Dawkins and Harris to Christian Fundamentalists, who basically want to get rid of everyone who disagrees with their particular brand of science or religion. He accuses both of magical thinking in their belief that humanity is capable of reaching perfection through its own efforts, and claims that this belief leads to many violent actions. The remedy, he says, is to accept mankind’s limitations as a reality. He stops short of acknowledging the power of God to change sinful humanity.

God Grew Tired of Us by John Bul Dau. The author is one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” who starred in the award-winning documentary by the same name. John’s Christian Dinka village was full of refugees when soldiers from the Islamic northern part of Sudan began firing one night. In the darkness and confusion he fled and hid in tall grass, where he was soon joined by an older man he thought was his father, the village chief, but was actually a neighbor. When the attack ended, they began running east toward Ethiopia. Their suffering and near-starvation on their journey was unbelievable, but they made it to the Pinyudu refugee camp where, at the age of 13, John was put in charge of 1200 younger boys! A couple of years later they were evacuated through a desert to the Kenyan border when Ethiopian soldiers from the new government drove them toward a crocodile-infested river which they swam across under a barrage of fire. They arrived at a UN refugee camp administered by Lutherans, where they received some schooling and John got a high school certificate. Eventually he was selected to be relocated to the US, where he finished his education while working two full-time jobs. He managed to find the rest of his family and was able to bring his mother and a sister to America. He has started a foundation to help his homeland. Much information about the history of Sudan is included. Makes you appreciate your blessings!

Ladies of Liberty: the women who shaped our nation by Cokie Roberts, well-known news broadcaster. The early years of our nation, as seen through the eyes of the presidents’ wives and other prominent women of the day – much more detailed, human-interest views than those of most men, by the way. Really makes history come alive! I think I will always be able to remember these presidents and their wives and the history that took place during those years: George and Martha who could do no wrong, John and Abigail who were too autocratic to please, widower Thomas and his daughter Martha accused of being an atheist and a Francophile, James and Dolley beloved for her “squeeze” receptions where any and all were welcome, James and Elizabeth who brought more formality and elegance to the White House, and John Quincy and Louisa who “campaigned” for her husband by hosting large weekly receptions and entertainments. Interesting to discover how truly nasty political campaigns were in those days, with salacious rumors and untruths flying about. Includes stories of the first female author to make a living with her writing, Lucretia Mott the Quaker abolitionist and women’s suffrage advocate, Rebecca Gratz a powerful Jewess who started Hebrew female seminaries to educate Jewish women, early charitable efforts by leading women for orphans and the poor, etc. War of 1812 fought over British impressment of sailors, shipping blockade and instigation of Indian wars in north and west. The “etiquette” battles among the wives over who should visit whom first!

Painting the Word: Christian pictures and their meaning by John Drury, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. Perusing the bookcases of my Dutch hosts, Ruud and Kees, I found this book in English and started reading it on Sabbath. Back home I got another copy from the library and finished it. I have no training in understanding art, but I remember that on a furlough when we were in Amsterdam and the boys and I waited at the Rijksmuseum while Bob took care of some business, we joined a guided tour and listened to an analysis of some of Rembrandt’s famous masterpieces; it was fascinating and made the paintings much more interesting and meaningful. This book does the same for some of the outstanding religious paintings, and also shows how changes in the culture was reflected by artists.

The Open Heart: Stories of Hope, Healing and Happiness by Lester R Sauvage, MD and his patients. Given to me by my daughter-in-law, Karla. Dr. Sauvage is a world-renowned heart surgeon who operated on about 5,000 patients, and an equal number of patients requiring major blood vessel surgery. He practiced at Providence and Children’s Hospitals in Seattle, Washington until his retirement in 1991, after which he continued to do research at the Hope Heart Center and to serve on the teaching faculty at University of Washington. His career has been unique in his equal concern for the physical and spiritual hearts of each of his patients. A devoted Catholic, he spent time before surgery in talking to and praying with each patient about their need to focus on the good they could do during the extra life their surgery would give them, and believes that this partnership with God has resulted in the good recovery his patients have had. Ten of his patients tell their stories, to which he has added his comments, along with the story of his life.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. A best-selling fiction book (well over a million sold) about a Baptist missionary family with four daughters who went to a small village in the Belgian Congo in the 1950s, each completely ignorant of the rich cultural background of the natives and thinking they had come to offer so much. Each well-developed character reacts differently to the events of liberation and the election of Lamumba, followed by the US/Eisenhower-orchestrated coup by the dishonest and avaricious Mugabe. The book is an expression of the author’s outrage over the US’s involvement in raping a simple, kindly people.

Wars of the Irish Kings by David McCullough. I was hoping to learn more about my probable ancestors, the MacLoughlin high kings, but they weren’t mentioned in this book, so I only read the first few chapters about the mythical heroes of Irish lore – Cuchulain, Finn MacCool, and Sweeney. Interesting – some of it reminded me a little of Beowulf.

The Rise and Fall of Alexandria: Birthplace of the Modern World by Justin Pollard and Howard Reid. Never having studied ancient history in school, my knowledge of that period has many holes in it, and this book helped fill in at least a little gap. I’d never really understood how Egypt, and Alexandria in particular, fit into the story of Christianity before. This book, along with Persian Fire also made me question the accuracy of the only ancient history I had previously known from studying Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the image. Babylon was not really a world empire in the sense that Persia and Rome were. And Greece was really only a world empire for 12 years until the death of Alexander the Great. After that it was more like a cultural influence over a number of independent areas ruled by dynasties founded by some of Alexander’s generals, which often fought against each other. I had always understood, as well, that after the Roman empire fell there was never another world empire, while I now realize that the Ottoman and Byzantine empires that followed Rome also ruled over most of the then-known world. Well, it’s good to become better informed! Another insight I’ve gained, from reading this book and Dogs of God, is that it was Christian intolerance that brought about the fall of Alexandria and ended the peaceful co-existence of Muslims, Jews and Christians in Spain.

A Christianity Worth Believing: hope-filled, open-armed, alive-and-well faith by Doug Pagitt. Rarely I happen upon an author who “speaks my language,” whose viewpoint meshes so well with mine that I realize how much I usually have to adapt, adjust and interpret the books I read, especially about religion. Pagitt, like Philip Yancey, is such a discovery. He is the pastor of Solomon’s Porch, a holistic, missional Christian community in Minneapolis, and a part of the “emergent church” movement. He believes that the Christianity we have inherited is heavily influenced by Greek culture and ways of thinking, and has lost much of the personal, “God with us,” Hebrew context out of which it arose. He believes the “judicial” view of salvation is something that made sense to the early Greek converts, but is baggage that is detrimental to our understanding of God today. He uses lots of stories, like Yancey and Lucado.

The Snoring Bird: my family’s journey through biology by Bernd Heinrich. It caught my eye on the "new book" rack at the library. The author was somewhat estranged from his father, Gerd, as an adult, but after his death, tried to understand him and reconstruct his life from correspondence, etc. Gerd was part of the classification and naming period of biology and an expert in the obscure ichneumon wasp. He collected specimens in Poland where his German family owned a large estate, in Germany, Indonesia, Burma, Africa and Mexico, mostly while officially collecting birds, such as the rail known as the snoring bird, and small mammals for various museums. Bernd also became a biologist, but during the period when molecular biology was replacing the kind of collecting his father had done. He made a number of important discoveries, became a well-known popular nature writer, and was an ultra-marathon racer.

Life Lessons - Life Questions

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Out of My Cocoon

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Books I'm Reading in 2008