This month’s Christian Century addresses a question that often plagues me. No, it’s not whether we need a new systematic theology or how best to create a society free of poverty and war. It’s about books, the shelves of books I have in my library.
Now, I have to admit every time I see an interview with someone who sits in front of a room full of books, seemingly organized from floor to ceiling, I start to salivate. And then I also wonder whether this personage has read all those books. I know I haven’t. but parting with a book usually means parting with some small part of me.
There are the books I revisit, some works of scholarship to help me with a sermon, but others just because the writing is pure joy. There are those books when read again opens your mind in a new way, different than when read for the first time. And then there are all the new books that I want to read. I need a 48-hour day.
Prayer for the Day
In the early morning light, and the dark of the evening,
We come to you, O God, to open our minds and spirits;
Words of beauty and words of despair speak to us
As we contemplate the world around us.
In gratitude, O Holy One, for writers and readers,
For thoughts and ideas, we thank you.
In the name of the One who read in the synagogue,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine novelist and essayist (1899-1986)
Books are the mirrors of the soul.”
Virginia Woolf, British writer, from Between the Acts (1882-1941)
When I have a little money, I buy books. If there is any left over, then I buy food and clothing.
Desiderius Erasmus, Renaissance writer (1466-1536)
Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear.
Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do you will, O my God, your law is within my heart.”
Psalm 40: 6-8