My Problem

When I start thinking about it, there are several things I would really like to do:

1.  Learn to play the recorder that I bought several years ago in Tucson.  It's a really pretty wooden soprano recorder.  It is not the most expensive, but not the least expensive either.  I can play a C scale, Amazing Grace and the Water is Wide. 

2.  Learn some Spanish.  I am not saying I want to be an expert, reading novels or anything.  But I'd love to be able to converse a little in Spanish, understand and speak a little.  I did buy some flash cards, but that's about all.

3.  Learn to make hand-sewn books.  At this point, I'm not interested in making my own paper.  but I really really want to learn how to make books.  If I ever write anything worthy of publication, I would love learning to print an art book (with some illustrations and perhaps prayers or poetry, maybe).

4.  Become better at knitting.  Make more complicated sock patterns, particularly lace.  By the way, I am still working on the sweater.

5.  Get a Doctor of Ministry in Preaching.  I do have an idea for a theme (and maybe even a book), but I'm not divulging it publicly yet. 

6.  Do a lectio divina retreat at the Benedictine Center in St. Paul.

7.  Take a writing class at The Loft Literary Center, or do one of the Iowa Summer Writing Workshops.

Right now, I am not doing any of these things.

Christian Bookstores

So one of my favorite small independent bookstores is going out of business.  It's a small-town bookstore, and I thought they had a lovely ambience and a great selection of different genres of books.  In the back was a children's book section with a mini log cabin and a display of all of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books.  (This town is not far from the site of "Little House in the Big Woods.") 

Still, the bookstore is in a small town, and small town economies are in tough shape.  It's in the historic downtown, where businesses are leaving (there's a thriving new area with several chain stores along the highway).   We all know that the bookstore business is in decline.

So I'm walking down the straight and I notice that there is not just this one bookstore in town.  There's also a Christian Bookstore.  And it's not going out of business, as far as I can tell.

Now I can't tell you if this bookstore is doing well or not; all I know is that's it's not going out of business.  I can also say that even though I call this a "Christian Bookstore", it's probably more appropriate to call it a Christian book, card and gift shop.  And of course, it features a modest selection of Bibles (though not the translation I use most), and some devotional books.

Though I suppose it's not fair as I have not been inside, this bookstore does seem familiar to me, as I have been in a number of Christian bookstore in my life, starting at about the time when I was having my flirtation with the evangelical and charismatic movements.  I started out liking them, but soon began fantasizing about opening my own bookstore, because I wanted a more diverse selection of spiritual books, to match the diversity of my own spiritual journey.

So for many years in the back of mind I've had this "impossible dream" about a Christian bookstore, but also I couldn't help noticing that all of the other Christian bookstores I had ever been in were sort of -- um -- alike (except for one, in Minneapolis, called St. Martin's Table.  Good food and a wonderful selection of books.  Unfortunately, St. Martin's Table closed last year.) 

I couldn't help noticing (and still can help noticing) that, for example, the Christian bookstore I most enjoy right now is located in our local Lutheran seminary, where almost none of the people in my congregation would ever go, and the local evangelical (southern Baptist, actually, though they don't tell you) bookstore is about six blocks away from where I live.  There are wonderful resources that I want the people in my congregation to know about, but some of them they can't find in any bookstore.   Because the bookstore six blocks away won't carry these wonderful resources (not all of them Lutheran, by the way).  I will also say that the fact that my favorite bookstore is located in a seminary might give you the impression that these are, for the most part, books for scholars, and not for lay people, and in that, you would not be totally mistaken. 

I'm pretty convinced that I won't be starting that "alternative Christian bookstore", but I would love to figure out a way to get more visibility for resources that are accessible, theologically sound, compelling and well-written.  Could churches host little satellite bookstores, or perhaps have suggested resources and links on their websites?  

What do you think? 

Bookstores, Reading, Community

I opened up my emails this morning to find bad news I did not expect:  another one of my favorite independent bookstores is going out of business.  This is one of the bookstores I visit in a local, historic small town; frankly, I think it's one of the things that make the town worth visiting (besides their fine hotel and antique stores). 

We have been visiting that town, and so we stopped in this morning, though it made us sad.  One woman entering the store said, "Where am I going to buy my books?"  I said, "I think on the internet."  She said, "Sometimes, you have to go into a bookstore."

Apparently, not enough people agree with her.

I love bookstores (yarn stores, too, but that's possibly another post).  I did used to have this dream of opening a small bookstore, though I knew little or nothing about the business angle.  (Just to show you that the dream hasn't completely died, I recently thought a store called "A Good Yarn" would be a great idea for a shop that combined books and knitting supplies.) 

I do remember, however, a time before bookstores.  Our biggest department store had a book department, but the first bookstore I saw (a B. Dalton, I believe) was when I was in high school.  I was very intrigued.  A whole store of nothing but books.  It wasn't a big store, but it was a book store.  It was like a library, except you didn't have to bring the books back.

I went to the library as a kid.  I did not have a large personal library of children's books.  We bought a few books through the mail, but most of the books that I read I did not own.  One of my prized possessions was an edition of Little Men, given to me by a friend for a birthday.  I didn't really start accumulating books until I was in college.

So on a rational level, I understand that markets come and markets go.  When I was small, my dad had his own small business:  G&B Radio and TV.  He sold and repaired a lot of TVs.  He used to win sales contests, and he won prizes.  Then, fewer people bought TVs from small shops, and especially in that neighborhood.  Now I believe that a small TV Sales and Repair shop is a rare thing. 

But there's a part of me that thinks that this is about more than books, and more than markets.  It's about community.  It's about the value of real places where people gather, say hello, exchange goods, opinions, and actually know that they matter to one another.  And those places are not gone, I'm not being alarmist.  But somehow I feel that it needs to be said.

In an internet age, brick and mortar sometimes seems like a liability.  I mean that in a bottom line sort of way.  Amazon can sell more cheaply partly because they don't have brick and mortar stores.  But if you are a brick and mortar store, you also are a member of a particular community, and that is a value too.

In the community where I served for four years, there was a small grocery store.  Most people did their grocery shopping in the nearest city, thirty-five miles away.  But I remember one of my parish members who told me that she made a point of doing some of her shopping at the small store, even though they didn't have everything she needed, and even though the prices were higher.  Because, she said, having a grocery store in her community was a value to her.

So in the race to the bottom line, I still think it's a good question to ask:  where are the places that remind us that we are members of one another, that our destinies are intertwined, that we all do better when we all do better?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Recently I've been going through some of the children's books in my office at church.  One of the things I'd like to do for Lent is recommend a few books for parents and children to read together.  While looking through some of the books I've collected, I found this one, which, as it turns out, is exactly perfect for Valentine's day:  Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch.

I picked up this book a few years ago at my favorite restaurant/bookstore/meeting place, St. Martin's Table, which closed this past December.  St. Martin's Table featured healthy soups, sandwiches and salads, great homemade desserts, and lots of books with themes of nonviolence, social justice and Biblical studies.  Oh, and a selection of quality children's books, too.

Whenever I walked into St. Martin's Table, I could count on Kathleen to get a stack of books that she thought I would like.  If I was not meeting someone, I could look through the books on my own, and decide which ones I would like to purchase.  Kathleen was always excited about the new arrivals.  "Mr. Hatch" was one of the books she was really excited about.

You'll need to read it for yourself, but its theme:  the power of love to transform a life.  Oh, if only we in the church truly lived the power of the gospel, the explosive at the heart of our existence.

Happy Valentine's Day.