Tuesday, June 12, 2007

I don't read books I live with them

My bible college professor said to us almost our first day of class “You will be the same today as you are 10 years from now except for the books you read and the people you meet.” This morning (Sunday) I was looking around my room at the books I keep running to for incite and solace, and ultimately for how they make me think. I realized I would like to know who these books are to me. Is there a reason I need to hold them so close? What role do they play in my life? There are several I've been living with for about two years.

I have always had a more intimate relationship with books than other people I know. I know people who like books who read but in some ways I use books to see. They are lenses I switch out. They are my dictionary and commentary in order to read life. And this is normative for me since I was raised to read scripture with dictionary and commentary in hand. Sometimes I realize I am too seeped in other peoples words and I step back from it all in order to have my own thoughts and my own telling of a story. In some ways this blog is me practicing that skill, although not always well.

Often stepping back calls for looking at what reason I have for seeking out that voice (books). It’s healthy to evaluate one’s relationships I think. So I am going to evaluate my relationships with my books (I think) in some future posts.

After I listed of all the books I have been threading in and out of my life I realized the one thing they have in common is mindfulness. Curious.

You know how they say when you are low on iron (or whatever vitamin or mineral) you crave meat... I wonder if this is my literary way of knowing what I need right now. Like my body knows if I need iron my mind knows if I need mindfulness.

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