In her book Ornament of the World, Maria Rosa Menocal asks the question: “How and why does a culture of tolerance fall apart?” Although she was writing about the collapse of medieval Spain, the question relates to our time. Why is it that books and libraries, so open to everyone, all of a sudden become the focus of attack? What is it we fear?
The Spanish Inquisition, she writes, was set up to cure the perceived ills of a society of tolerance. In our own time, we have seen book burnings and the attack on the freedom that libraries and books offer us. The so-called “Moms for Liberty” are not for liberty at all but for repression and the fear that their children will ask questions they cannot answer.
There is a story of an old rabbi when asked by his students why do we always ask questions, responds, “So, what’s wrong with a question?” The polarity in our society pits those fearful of questions, books, and libraries against the deep human desire to learn, a narrow view of the world against the realization that knowledge has no boundaries.
Prayer for the Day
You have made us sentient beings, O Lord,
Full of questions and the desire to search for answers;
You have opened to us a world that awaits our investigations,
A world that encourages us to always ask how and why.
Help us defeat the nay-sayers, those who fear answers,
Those who fear the questions our minds give us.
In the name of the One who always asked questions,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Where books are burned, they will in the end burn people, too.
Heinrich Heine, German poet (1797-1856)
Books are a way we leave a mark on the world, aren’t they? They say we were here, we loved and we grieved and we laughed and we made mistakes and we existed. They can be burned halfway across the world, but the words cannot be unread, the stories cannot be untold.
Brianna Labuskes, author, from The Librarian of Banned Books
Ask and it will be given you; search and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks will receive, and everyone who searches finds; and for everyone who knocks the door will be opened.
Jesus, from the Sermon on the Mount as related in Matthew 7: 7-8