I’ve always loved books. As a kid, I hid in the bathroom with a book or snuck a book and flashlight under the covers when I was supposed to be sleeping. Books have been my steady companions since I was an infant. I can’t remember a time when my Dad did not read to me. But I am a bit discerning about what I read. I’ve always been attracted to books that have helped me grow spiritually, and after seminary, I would gravitate to some really serious stuff like John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus or Nelson-Palmeyers’ Jesus Against Christianity or Jim Wallis’s Christ In Crisis. By and large, however, I have gravitated toward a good non-violent mystery or well-written novel. Lately, I’ve gotten hooked on escape novels (well written, of course, as I am a grammar snob.}
When I was in seminary, I was on a Dorothy Sayers jag, and one of my professors asked why I was so attracted to that rather than more important reading, like nonfiction. I told him that I appreciated the way Sayers, for instance, wove theological themes and observations into her mysteries, so they weren’t just well-written stories but a study in faith and human nature. Most of all, I told him, I like mysteries because in the end, the bad guy gets his comeuppance, and there is a sense of resolution, something that rarely seems to happen in real life.
Lately, I’ve been on a British/Irish/Scottish kick. All romances, all definitely escape reading, though I didn’t really cotton to the realization until this morning that I was running away from some pain in my life. With most of these, it is easy to predict how they will end, but occasionally, they will sneak in a few surprises. But given how I have been feeling, I have very little interest in the real world, where there is so much suffering and very few happy endings. Even our local paper carries enough national news to break my heart again and make me feel utterly helpless to affect any change.
I’ve liked to think that being a good person, practicing gratitude, and staying positive is enough, but is it? Is it when so much evil seems to be staring us down the world over? I long ago gave up my illusion that following Jesus would guarantee a happily ever after, but really? Trump and his insanity? Genocides erupting all over the world? The erosion of what democracy we had? Or have I always lived under a cloud of illusion? Clung to something we want to believe so we can stop staring into the abyss and eventually jump?
Friends are coming over this evening, for which I am grateful. I think I have things fairly in hand, so I’m going to sit down with a cup of tea and start another happily ever after novel. As I learned in the 12-step program, we must cling to whatever helps us be as positive and grateful as we can be, one day at a time, by doing the next thing. And for me, that’s starting another book.