Waiting for the furnace man to check the system and switch things from air conditioning to heat, I grabbed my Kindle for something to do and opened a book titled The Echo of Old Books. Just a few pages in, I read, “Books are feelings. They exist to make us feel, to connect us to what ‘s inside, sometimes to things we don’t even know are there. It only makes sense that some of what we feel would rub off.”
As a lover of books, that made perfect sense to me, but I don’t know that I’d ever thought of books as a collection of feelings that are designed to rub on us, the readers. All I know is that I react very differently to books. There are happy books, sad books, books heavy with pain, books that open my eyes, giving me a new perspective on life.
While I do not agree with those who seem so intent on removing “threatening “books from public and school libraries, I understand why they feel so threatened. Books have this way of transforming our world, presenting a new perspective and opening us to new truths and old myths and lies. For someone who has stepped into the romantic view of slavery, books like 12 Years a Slave, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Caste make for uncomfortable reading. History has always been told from the perspective of the winners, but when we have winners, we also have losers whose stories and realities are very different.
Many newer theology books open us to a different way of understanding and experiencing Christianity. When I discovered a talking version of Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ, I redid it three times before it disappeared from my iPad. Otherwise, I’d still be listening to it as I cooked, sewed, etc. While I find books like Jesus Against Christianity exciting and enlightening reading, they also leave me with questions and a sense of severe sadness. How is it possible that we have come to misread the words of Jesus and twist his sayings to conform to the status quo and what makes us feel more comfortable? But is that any different than those stories that bring so much joy and remind us of what life could truly be?
One of my greatest fears is that the time will come when I can no longer cradle a book in my hands and hold it close to my heart. Yet each day brings its special gifts and today’s gift is that quote from the The Echo of Old books. “Books are feelings; They exist to make us feel. To connect us to what‘s inside, sometimes to things we don’t even know are there. It only makes sense that some of what we feel would rub off.”