Books

Reading, for me, has gone through a strange transformation. It used to be something that I would either do for pleasure or for education. They were two distinct circles. These circles started to approach each other and bump lines when I read the book Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers. This book felt like it tapped on themes that I knew were relevant to how I lived my life specifically. Harry Potter and Tamora Pierce's series definitely had relevant themes and values, such as loyalty, courage, and the importance of wisdom. But this one, with it's explicit Christian themes and Christ's love imbibing every chapter, was different. It was fiction made compatible with Truth. I sold my soul for a brief period of time and read the Twilight series, and felt it come back full force when I read Captivating. This book provides beautiful insight about God's specific and purposeful design for women. This timing was probably for the best, considering all of the junk Twilight probably put in my head. I then read The Alchemist, by Paul Coelho which, to this day, is still one of my favorite books. It's a short read with some of the most universal and accessible ideas about life as an adventure. After that and a couple of other good books, I was very lucky to start dating a wonderful man right around Christmas time. A guy after my own heart, he gave me two books that I now consider among my favorites: Man Alive and Common Sense 101. The first is a fiction work by G.K. Chesterton that focuses on a main character who attempts, in a variety of odd tactics, to place himself outside of his own life in order to gain perspective and wisdom about the joy and blessings of life. The second is a commentary on the reason, intellect, and... well, common sense, that Chesterton lends to the Christian/Catholic faith. After adding Mere Christianity  and Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, as well as Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love by Edward Sri, a few John Green novels, quite a few Shakespeare works, Jesus Freaks (martyr narrative collection), and An Anthology of Christian Mysticism, some of which were at the recommendation of the same guy both during the time we dated and after, and others just things I picked up here and there, I found something curious. I loved books with God in them. Not in a "Oh well you could consider God to be in every book because God is everywhere," kind of way. I loved books that people wrote in order to help me create and find and understand my relationship with God, in any way. Fictional? Sure! Non-fiction? Why not! Sci-fi, romance comedy, opera, narrative, biography? Whatever! I have found that I also like books about people... how they think, feel, relate. I believe that this is because humans are made in the image of God, and oftentimes, God reveals himself to us through other people. What makes this so curious is that it contradicts the motivation of reading in order to escape to another world, which is a popular sentiment about why so many young people read (especially fiction). God is the biggest and most identifiable part of our world, and we're not going to really find Him anywhere but in reality. Before senior year of high school, I curled into the secluded corners of my dog-tailed pages to find a refuge which was always so different than what lay outside the book's binding. But, slowly but surely, I started scrounging through lines and lines of stories I loved, unsatisfied with the point of the story. I would think to myself, "Okay, but who cares? Cool, she becomes the first lady knight of this realm and has a magical cat. She worked hard and earned it and stuff. And?" Unless I could convince myself that what I was reading mattered outside of developing a plot line, it wasn't worth my time! I think I might still hold that opinion. Reading is kind of like food- fill up on the good stuff! It reminds me of a cool, conclusive quote I came across reading one of these more "brain-nutritious" books:

"Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid."  -G.K. Chesterton