A Stiringly Good Read

I love to read. My problem is that I am a slow reader and I tend to read several books at the same time, which can cause me to be a little slower in getting a book finished. I wasn't always a reader. I can't tell you what books I read before high school but I can tell you when I got the "real itch" to read. I was a junior in HS and dating a girl named Sue (no relation to the boy name Sue). She was a jewel of a girl, kind, smart, and pretty. We would have a period during the day when we both had freetime and we would wander off to the band hall and I would lie on the floor and she would read The Hobbit to me. It made me feel like I did when I was a kid and went to my grandmother Stratton's and she would read to us. I would lie there and listen to Sue's voice as she read chapter after chapter. I was enthralled with the story (I had never heard of JRR Tolkien nor any of his books). When the school year ended, and the book was finished, Sue gave me a copy of the first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I was going away on a family trip for part of the summer and she gave me the book to read. To keep me "inspired" she had put little notes throughout the book, with little hints about characters or situations that were about to happen and there we even a few love notes put in for good measure. I devoured the book. And I was hooked on reading.

When I got back to school that fall I came across a book I think was called Little Woman. I'm not sure what caused me to pick it up but the subject matter interested me, the true story about a woman responding to the call to be a missionary in China and her struggles to get there and while she was there (there was a movie made about her, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness - great movie). Anyway, I devoured that one, too.

One of my favorite authors in the area of fantasy and historical fiction is Stephen Lawhead. I started to read his stuff as an adult and what is so cool about it is that my son loves to read his stuff as well, so we would be reading his books and talking about the story. What a fun way to bond.

I still love to read fantasy (reading Hood by Lawhead now) but I have moved into reading, for a lack of a proper description, biological musings. Kathleen Norris' books Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith and The Cloister Walk were very inspiring and insightful. I still go back to Amazing Grace for quotes and ideas.

If you haven't read Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality your missing a real treat (they're making that one into a movie - that should be interesting). I read one of his earlier books, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God and Beauty on the Open Road, and was often transported to my month long road trip the summer of my graduation from high school with two very dear friends. I wish I had the skills then to have kept, at a minimum, a journal of that experience. The dust of time has covered much of my memories of that trip but every once in a while something shuffles the dust enough for me to remember a remnant of that time.

I am currently reading Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. I came across one of her books back in the late 90's while I was on a college tour as a high school counselor. I was becoming more consistent in my journaling at the time and was even starting to write "reflections" that I'd email to people who were kind enough to receive them (this was before blogging became the rage). I was just looking at books and picked up Bird by Bird, which deals with writing and life and I found it very thought provoking and humorous.

Now, these "biographical musing" authors don't necessarily fit into my "mold" of what a Christian should be like or behave or even think, at times. When I read their works I am often challenged to rethink what I believe and why, which is why I like reading their stuff. They make me laugh, cringe, they can shock me and anger me, affirm my doubts and questions, but they always cause me to look upward. They make me work at my faith and they draw me back into the reality of the world where I don't usually like to be. Whether I agree with them or not, I can't argue that they challenge me to put feet to my faith.

Which is one of the main reasons I enjoy reading. But I admit I also love books - the feel of them, the visual stimulus of them. I like the ambiance I get when I walk into a room that is filled with books - their smell, their mosaic design in the bookshelves. When you and I go into a home and visit, whether family or friends, there are certain things we look for to give us a clue about these people - pictures, nick-knacks, CD's, and books. You can get an idea of what their interests or hobbies are by what "coffee table" books they have lying around. (At my house you wouldn't get much of a clue because we don't have any - they're all on my bookshelves in my office but if I could, I'd have 5 or 6 lying around) And I love to go into bookstores and hang around. Or libraries. I haven't done so much here in SC but at other places I have lived I would go a couple of times a week and hang out at the library and work. I found inspiration there from being surrounded by so many books. When I lived in Burlington, VT I had 4 college and a university library to go to within a mile or two from my home. I was almost in heaven.

My Aunt Marti is my Mom's youngest sister. She is a librarian, retired now but still exercising her library skills in a number of ways. Whenever I see her, which is not very often because she lives in Ohio, she usually asks me about what books I might be reading or tells me about a book or author that she has read or heard speak. When I started doing my email reflections she would write back with words of encouragement, or about something that touched her and challenged her that I had written, and occasionally suggestions on what I should do in the future to make my writing better (my Mom still does - usually about spelling). She and my mother were often the main reasons I kept writing.

So, all this has spilled from my mind as a result from reading something Anne Lamott wrote in her book, Plan B, about her mother and her mother's friend, who was a librarian, and the impact they had on her:

"They both taught me that if you insist on having a destination when you come into a library, you're shortchanging yourself. They read to live, the way they also went to the beach, or ate delicious food. Reading was like breathing fresh ocean air, or eating tomatoes from old man Grbac's garden. My parents, and librarians along the way, taught me about the space between the words; about the margins, where so many juicy moments of life and spirit and friendship could be found. In a library, you can find small miracles and truth, and you might find something that will make you laugh so hard that you will get sushed, in the friendliest way. I have found sanctuary in libraries my whole life, and there is sanctuary there now, from the war, from the storms of our families and our own minds. Libraries are like mountains or meadows or creeks: sacred space. So this afternoon, I'll walk to the library."

I write all this because what I read caused me to start thinking about those people that have drawn me into a world of conversation, debate and even escape at times. I thank my Mom, Grandmother Stratton, Aunt Marti, Librarians, and an old high school girlfriend for inspiring me to read. And the authors who take me places that I might not otherwise choose, or be able, to go.