What is it about Books?

I have moved, and I am moving.  Two years ago I began the process by saying "yes" to a call to serve a congregation just north of Houston, Texas.  At that time I knew I would be living temporarily in a small apartment while my husband completed his work and was able to move with me, and so I took a few of the things I thought I were the most important -- including books.

Books.  What is it about books?

Now we are completing the process, two years later, and we are packing and sorting the rest of our things, deciding what is most important and necessary and what is not.  We are taking things to thrift stores (God help us) and throwing things away and packing and labeling.  We are trying to figure out what is most important, and it's not always easy.  Especially about the books.

Books.  What is it about books?

I find the number of books I own sort of alarming, and I find that I truly do want to downsize.  i want to live a lighter life, and books are one of the heavy things.  I want to be more portable, to travel and to be available to go.  I don't want to feel weighed down with things.  And all of this is theoretical when I look at each individual book.

I won't lie.  Some of them are easy, and it's a relief.  Some of them I hadn't seen in a long time, and I had forgotten that I even had them.  Some I rescued, and put in a stack "to keep", for one reason or another.  And not all of the reasons are logical.  I have saved most of the children's books, even though I do not have children.  They are beautiful.  There are some old books I have put in the 'save' pile simply because they have beautifully designed covers.  I have decided to donate or sell books that I have loved, reasoning to myself that I will learn to love again the public library.  I have tried with some success to read some more on Kindle or Nook.  I am reading H is for Hawk on a Reading Device right now, and I love it, but when I saw some used copies in a bookstore I still had to stop and stare.

Books.  What is it about books?

It's about relationships, I tell myself.  I want to value people more than things.  I don't want to spend more time on things than I do on people.  But then I consider how I want to buy many copies of a certain book of creative prayer, and give them to all of my friends.

There is something for me about the whole book, the entire experience, that is not the same reading electronically.  There is something about the marriage of the words and the pages and the weight of it in my hands, how the whole thing is put together.  A book is a work of art.

I took a couple of book-making classes where we cut the pages and sewed the bindings and learned a little of the terminology of the making of books.

When I was a child, I  could lose myself in a book, and forget where I was for awhile.  I could lose my sense of hearing while I reading about Alice or Lucy, abut Laura or Betsy.  People would call me and I was somewhere else, because I was reading.

So books and reading are sort of a spiritual experience for me.  Not just the Bible and the prayer books, but those too.  I have caught glimpses of God, and the more acquainted I am with the Book, the more I catch sight of God in books.  (And in other places too.)

Books.  What is it about books?

The other day we were in a used bookstore, selling some books.  And while we were there waiting for the verdict, I wandered the aisles and stared at the books.  I saw a new book for young adults, a historical novel set during the Revolutionary War, told from the point of view of two young slaves, yearning for freedom.  I saw a prayer book for soldiers written during World War II.  I saw a locally published book of stories written by the students at one of our middle schools.

I know it is not this way for everyone.  Some people struggle with reading, and do not love books.  There are many paths to knowledge, and transformation.  Relationships are more important than things.

And yet:  Books.  What is it about books?

Being Here, Not There

On Saturday, I met one of my cousins for lunch.  She has lived in this state for most of her adult life.  I have lived her for about one and a half months.  We've been meaning to get together, but even though we are in the same state now, and even in the same urban area, it takes some coordination to get together.

Her father and my father were brothers.  My dad was the youngest, the baby, they called him.  Her dad became a pastor.  My father looked up to his big brother, and was always very active in church, at least in part due to his brother's example.

I've only seen my cousin a handful of times in these last several years.  But we're family, and we had wonderful conversation and catching up.  In between stories of family and her work as a school counselor, we shared some theological convictions and differences with grace and good perspective.  ("Are you Calvinist or Arminian?" she asked.  There just aren't that many times that question has come up in conversation.)

I felt blessed to be here, to be able to get to know my cousin a little better in this place new to me.

Afterwards I found the local Christian bookstore.  I was searching for just the right gift for a young man from my church who would be confirmed the next day.  I was inwardly congratulating myself for not getting lost while I was standing in the checkout line with my items.

Somehow the location of my home state came up.  The clerk said that her aunt and uncle were from there.  I asked where.  It was my town.  For some reason (perhaps because I was in a Christian bookstore), I suddenly asked which church they went to.  She described the church.

It was my church:  the church I had served for seventeen years.  I knew her cousins.  I confirmed both of her cousin's daughters.  Her cousin's wife was my children's ministry coordinator, had worked with me on the contemporary worship service.

Suddenly, my heart was filled with so many competing emotions:  surprise and joy, grief and homesickness, so many other things.  I was remembering the beginning of my ministry at that other congregation, with relationships and dreams and planning just beginning.  And I was thinking about the beginning of ministry in this new place, wanting to be there for a new family, to be present and walk with them and dream with them now.

I was here, not there:  sitting across the table from my cousin, buying a tie for a confirmation student, praying for him -- not from a distance, but right there behind him in church, with his whole family.

A long time ago I lived in Japan.  I was twenty-five years old, seeking adventure, wanting to follow Jesus and love people.  It turned out that the particular people that God wanted me to love were far away from other people that I loved.  I went and I learned some Japanese and I knelt down to talk to children and I ate with chopsticks.  I learned new places and directions:  to take the train, to take my shoes off, to read, to listen.

And every once in awhile it occurred to me:  I am here, not there.

This morning I got up early and went to the pre-school to greet the children there.  It was the first day of school.  And at first it felt awkward, and I wasn't sure what to do.  But after awhile I realized that it was all right just to be there today, to say hello, to help make a few name tags:  to be there.

At all times one of the tasks is simply to be present, to be fully where you are.  It's not as easy as it looks.

Stuff

These last few days packing and moving has been a part of my work.  I have been sorting and packing books and cards and papers, deciding what to toss and what to save, trying to put things in boxes in at least a semi-organized manner.

Sometimes I stop to look, to read, to remember.  I stop before packing a book that I bought, but haven't read, and I think, "Maybe I will read it now."  I stop to look at a random photograph, a picture taken after a baptism, or during Vacation Bible School one year.  I stop in the middle of sorting a box of cards, to read a thank you note from a child:  "Thank you for helping me cut my pancakes."  I remember then, the "lunch with a pastor" rewards given to students for Sunday School attendance.

I have a lot of stuff.

I have a lot of children's books, I observe.  I did not get these in seminary.  I decide I am going to keep all of these, though they are heavy.  I also have most all of my seminary books still, and my notes.   have sermons.  I have lesson plans.  I have knick-knacks too.  What should I keep?

This is what happens in life.  You accumulate.  At least I do.  Some you accumulate on purpose, and some by accident, just because it goes into a corner and you don't think of it again for a long time.  And then, someday, you move and you consider the weight of all of that stuff.  What it means.  What it costs.  The memories held in the middle of the stuff.  There are different kinds of weights.

One piece of advice I got with regard to leaving my congregation:  Attend to the relationships.  Make time for people.  I think it is good advice.  But there is a hard deadline to be out of the office.

I would much rather be visiting people, talking to them on the phone, having coffee, than sorting stuff in my office.  I would much rather spend all of my time with people than with stuff, except for the time when I see some old confirmation student doodling and memories flood back in.

I wonder if, in the next leg of the journey, I can somehow design my life so that I can spend more time with people than with stuff.  I would like moving to be easier, to be able to pick out and pick up the most important stuff, even to know what it is, and then to spend more time with people, with the people I will leave, with the people I want to remember.