REVIEWED:

Halftime

by Bob Buford

Helping Worriers

by James R. Beck and David T. Moore

7 Online Services

(America Online, CompuServe, GEnie, Prodigy, Ecunet, The Microsoft Network, eWorld)

Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching

by William H. Willimon and Richard Lischer, editors

The Care of Troublesome People

by Wayne E. Oates

STRAIGHT TALK

How to live the second half of life.

This year I hit 50, which called for some reflection. I read Bob Buford's "Halftime--Changing Your Game Plan from Success to Significance" (Zondervan, 175 pages, $15.99) and thought back a quarter century ago, when I was a 25-year-old Green Beret in Vietnam.

My cheek was pressed in the mud of a small trench at Dak Pek, a Special-Forces A Camp. With elements of a North Vietnamese regiment surrounding our perimeter, the thought occurred to me that I could die here.

I asked myself, What difference will it make that I have lived?

That question started a process that continued a few months later in another tropical valley, this time in Hawaii, ...