Don’t you ever wonder how earlier generations dealt with storms like the one that we’re having throughout our region and further north into New England without snowplows and mechanized equipment? It’s as if the world has come to a stop. Let’s look back at an earlier time when on this day something extraordinary happened.
On this day in 1455, Johannes Gutenberg a German craftsman, combined metal letters, oil-based ink, and a modified screw press to create the first movable type printer, revolutionizing the way books could be produced. Many scholars believe that without the invention of the printing press, the Reformation could not have happened.
Although Gutenberg printed his Bible in Latin, Luther’s German translation as well as other books and tracts, could be now be available to a wider audience, ushering in an explosion of new ideas that could be widely disseminated. With new ideas censorship also became more pronounced by authorities fearing their consequences. But the mind cannot be censored, a lesson for today.
Prayer for the Day
You created us as thinking sentient beings, O God,
Full of questions about the world we inhabit and beyond;
You call us to wonder about tragedy as well as beauty,
Asking questions about the social order that exists.
Continue to open our minds unfettered by old restrictions,
Enabling us to create a world of justice and peace.
In the name of the One who calls us to question,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...
Dwight D. Eisenhower, general, President, 1953-1960 (1890-1969)
As centuries of dictators have known, an illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule; since the craft of reading cannot be untaught once it has been acquired, the second-best recourse is to limit its scope.
Alberto Manguel, Argentine-Canadian anthologist, from A History of Reading
Thus says the Lord who made the earth,
The Lord who formed it to establish it-
Call to me and I will answer you -- the Lord is my name
And will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.
Jeremiah 33:2-3