STOPPED

The sun-dappled porch was quiet and cool. I was lost in my thought. The ideas were stuttering their insight. The yellow legal pad tried to capture them before they wafted away on the breeze. 

In my effort to stimulate my thought, I was reading snatches of “The Writing Life” by Annie Dillard. As I work to carve out space for more writing, I thought it might help to read how others did it. It was liberating to read that it takes 2 to 10 years to write a book. Patience, Moseley.

As I reveled in Annie Dillard’s spare but vivid words, I turned the page and there, hiding between pages 32 and 33, as if waiting to disrupt my revelry, was a bookmark. The picture was of a cat standing on top of some books, underneath were the words
                Your Personal Bookseller
                 Mills Bookstores
                 Belle Meade
                 Brentwood
                Hillsboro Village
 And hiding under the bookmark was the receipt, still legible, $12.89.

And my mind whipsawed back some 25 years when I was trying to figure out how to write a book. And back to the old, tightly packed and chaotic Bookstore in Hillsboro Village in Nashville, TN, where I frequented not only when I was served a congregation there but also 50 years ago when I was studying at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

And there I was stopped in my tracks. My musings were hijacked as I was swallowed by the warm memories of small privately owned bookstores where books spilled out of the shelves, crying out for me to pick them, open them and have my mind introduced to new worlds. It was a place where you could talk books with those who knew them. I am so grateful for the chance to be embraced by such places.

I know there are still places like Mills Bookstore, but, I don’t live near them. And anyway, there are times when I just want to revel in warm memories. This is one of those days.

INNOVATION

Innovations can be scary. It is very difficult to predict what they might mean.

I read somewhere about the response to the printed word. The printing press in 1439 and people began to have limited access to the printed word. As it began to grow, more people learned to read. People held words in their hands and explored ideas of others alone in their room. Before that time, information was transmitted primarily through spoken language and through the institutions of society who controlled that information (primarily rulers and the religious organizations).

Now there were some who were in power who objected to this increased availability of information.  They rightly posited that people would be harder to control if they could interpret what they received for themselves. Some would say that the Protestant Reformation of the church and the Enlightenment’s ability to nurture the rights of individuals was directly related to the printing press. Obviously, those who controlled information objected to the easier availability of ideas.

But, one of the most intriguing objections to the rise of the popularity of books was that individuals would lose track of the real and the present. When we read, we are transported somewhere else. There were those who believed that being fully present where we are and to those around us was a virtue and that anything that caused us to escape the present was unhealthy.

Now, as a book lover, I am grateful that those who resisted the expansion of the print media did not win the battle. I am glad that I can be transported outside my own little world with the reading of other’s ideas and stories. When I am stretched and discover realities beyond my knowing, I am richer for it.

And therefore, I am grateful for the digital age. It may be dangerous if it becomes a drug that keeps us from being present to those in the room with us. But by making possible access to more knowledge and more experience of the vast and exciting world we live in, I think we will all be enriched. It may be messy, but what a ride we can have.

OLD BOOKS

I have spent several years giving away books. When I retired as a professor, I had so little room for books at home I gave away 75% of my books. As I have lived in the smaller space of my home office, I have, on several occasions given away more books. This has not been easy.

It is painful because books are more than paper and print. Words are like friends who impact and sometimes change our lives. They are the ideas of people who have taken hours and days, months and years organizing thought about life and death. They are stories of the heart and insights of the soul. They are filled with words that, woven like threads of grace, become woven into the story and soul of the reader.

So, when I give away books, I give away my visible connection with the souls who have poured themselves out self-giving sacrifice for me. They gave the time and the spirit that life had given them and used their life to inform, entertain, inspire and enrich my life. Having them on shelves around my office reminds me of the gifts that others give freely to each other.

And, being wrapped in the wall paper of books also reminds me that I am not alone in my struggle to live well. To be human is to live life. To live life is to try to make sense of what happens in life. To be religious humans is to be interested in what life means. My books were attempts to comprehend the incomprehensible, to name the mystery, to appreciate the complexity, to clarify the confusing. 

So, I am reducing number of books around me. And as I do, I sit in awe of the incredible human capacity to live, to seek, to share and to joy in the love of that life.