Ode to Good Books

Books.

They are almost human-like in their ability to arrest our interest, fill our thoughts long after the cover's closed, give us new ideas, inspire our own creativity, stretch the boundaries of our knowledge as they force us to wrestle with complicated subject matter; they carry us off to new worlds, and even comfort us when we are lonesome--for reading is really nothing more than a long conversation that cannot be heard outside our heads.

A 2010 count by Google revealed nearly 130 million individual book titles in the world today.That is a truly staggering number of written works.

I come from a long line of voracious readers. I can remember winter evenings of my childhood spent at my grandparents' house, in which the grown-ups sat around the living room reading books, papers, magazines, commentaries, etc., and we children pored over stacks of decades-old yellow-tinged comic books. All the aunts and uncles who married into this strange family quickly grew bored with the dull company. But for those of us who had the Reading Gene, such evenings were the epitome of delightful.

My family's house today has bookshelves in every room of the house (with the possible exception of the bathroom--with lots of people living in one house, bathrooms are in far too high demand to have any leisure time in there!).

I outgrew the bookcase in my bedroom, and last spring the floor in front of it was piled high with stacks of books I couldn't bring myself to dispose of. When I moved away (temporarily), the first thing we put into my new cottage was a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, which looked so roomy back in July (now it's almost full).

Why the obsession with books? Consider the statistics: After graduating from high school, ONE THIRD of adults will NEVER AGAIN read another book. After college, it's worse: 42% of college graduates will never read another book in their lifetimes. In America today, HALF of the adult population is UNABLE to read an 8th grade-level book with satisfactory comprehension. 80% of American families have not bought ONE BOOK in the past YEAR, and nearly two-thirds of the nation's population has not been inside in a book store in more than FIVE YEARS. We are a tragically ignorant nation.

But it's not that just going out and starting to read will fix the problem. Not any book will do. Much of the written material available will do more harm than good if consumed. I have friends who consider themselves avid readers, yet have consumed only from the fantasy genre for the past decade! While good fantasy has its place, a decade-long diet of it is as unhealthy as eating dessert in place of breakfast, lunch and dinner for a year. You will be unwell, imbalanced, addicted to it, and unable to appreciate other foods.

For my girls, the thirteen girls I've been praying for and writing to for nearly a year, I have been seriously thinking, planning, and praying about a decision that will take things up a notch. A big notch. We are going to reverse the trend of non-reading and frivolous reading. We are beginning to collect the Good Books of each of the following genres, and read them together. Such subjects are rarely heard of outside the classroom, but they are truly foundational if young women are to be insightful into their world, knowledgeable of its history, aware of its future, and if they are to become vital contributors and contenders in their culture. We live in an age and in a country in which ignorance is inexcusable. By the grace of God, we will make up for lost time, put away foolish reading, and instead fill our minds with only those things that spur us on to harder thinking and a deeper understanding of our Lord and His created order, that we might comprehend and appreciate His nature more, and become more useful in His hand as instruments of light on a darkened planet.

The list will change as we add to it, but for now, these are the things we deem most important with which to fill our minds. The list of book titles for each genre is also growing as we labor to compile a curriculum of only the truly Good Books.

·         Theology & Doctrine

·         Philosophy

·         Economics, Business, & Finances

·         Law & Government

·         Politics & Current Events

·         History

·         Basic Sciences

o   Biology

o   Geology

o   Geography

o   Chemistry

o   Physics

o   Mathematics

o   Geometry

o   Botany

o   Engineering

o   Astronomy

o   Ecology

o   Technology

o   Genetics

o   Anthropology

·         Medicine, Nutrition, & Health

·         Household Management

·         Culture/Art/Aesthetics

·         Music

·         Self Defense and Firearms

·         Communication, Language, & Literature

·         Trade Skills & Agriculture

Behind the Mask

I've been called an extrovert more times in my life than I can remember. But I'm not, not really, not in the true sense of the word. I love to cancel plans, curl up with a good book, a blank drawing pad, or a new creative project on my laptop. I love to shut out the sounds of my life (including the ceiling fan) and just sit in perfect stillness, listening to the sounds of a world that has temporarily forgotten I am there--a helicopter overhead, someone mowing the lawn, chickens scratching in their pen. I can go two days without uttering a single word, because I'm alone and there's no one to talk to. Two months might get lonesome, but a few days of quiet are lovely. I know these days will not last, and that is all right.

When I was a kid, people thought I talked too much, laughed too loud, and had too many hair-brained ideas. Sometimes I think, really? Did you not see me holding back tears and hiding behind my mama's skirt because I was too shy to walk into the church potluck by myself? Did you not see me spending hours in my hay fort, conjuring up fanciful tales in fictional worlds, playing in a universe completely removed from this one? Evidently not.

But I am loud, sometimes. I don't always cancel plans. Sometimes I'm raring to go. It is greatly satisfying to set off a crowd of friends in laughter that can't be quelled. But after a few hours of fun and games, I'm ready to go to a quiet, lonely place. Even when the cousins visit and we vow to stay up all night making once-in-a-lifetime memories, I fade away and creep off to my room for a little bit of solace before going to bed, hours before the rest of the house dies down.

People think that because I can say plainly whatever I perceive to be true, that I actually do say it fearlessly all the time. I've been told I'm a great evangelist, by someone who's never seen me struggle through actually witnessing to someone. Wow, did that one ever get called wrong. Please don't tell people things about me that are the antithesis of reality! Just because I don't particularly care what people think about me, doesn't mean that I readily do things I know will bring me into conflict with them. Even when I staunchly disagree, I'd just as soon keep quiet and ride it out. This is often a fault.

I gave a speech at my college graduation. People liked it, at the time (most have forgotten it by now). Afterwards: "Brenna, come speak to our church youth!" Me: "No!" (OK, I didn't say it like that.) Once again, they think I am something I am not.

Sometimes I wonder, am I inconsistent? Am I one way here, another way someplace else, and a third personality at other times? Am I so tossed about by every wind that I cannot be--or even know--what (or who) I really am? Others I have talked to feel the same. Why do other people have us pegged so wrong? Are they clueless, or are we wearing masks?

The answer is not complicated. When people view us (and we them), they peer out at the world through a lens that is distorted, warping and shading their perception. We've all got a lens immovably fastened in front of our eyes. Some things we see clearly, at a certain angle, when the light is just right--and we are actually looking. Most things we see mostly clearly, but not all the way. That is part and parcel with being human. We're biased. Jaded. Naive. We only see a fraction of the whole, the outside mask concealing the interior. We're confidently dead wrong.

But the all-seeing eye of the Lord is not so. The heart of man is bare before him. He is not misled by extroversion on Tuesday nights or introversion on Fridays. He masterminded the wonderfully complex, soul-possessing mechanism that is humankind, with all its tics and traits. He has no lens obscuring his piercing sight. And what he demands from his creations is not nearly as complicated or burdensome as we imagine it to be. He does not give stipulations individual to shyness or flamboyance. 

Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Take up your cross and follow Me.

Masks and warped lenses will all be cast aside, and each will stand before the throne alone. Those who seek to mend their flaws apart from the cross will fall and fall hard. Self-study and self-discovery showcase only more and more of Self--that ugly creature whose presence I already war against. But those who lift up their eyes to Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith who began a good work and is faithful to complete it, these ones will run the race, finish in victory, and receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.  

Well done, thy good and faithful servant.