Books

Something about me has always liked having two or three books or other readings going at any one time. It’s like having more than one work project (which certainly was always common not only as a parish priest in my experience, but also as naval officer, consultant, adjunct college professor!) or several hobbies: cars, astronomy, other things at various times in life. 

Linda recently put me onto Karen Armstrong’s book The Bible - A Biography. The first chapter is so fascinating that I’ve read it three times including the third time in bed earlier this morning, together with re-reading Second Kings along with it, about the good kings Hezekiah and Josiah, and haven’t moved on beyond, though today into chapter two for sure. The New Yorker magazines that Joe brought at Christmas are a treasure for relaxation and enjoyment. Walking thirty to forty minutes on the treadmill every morning requires distraction, so Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is propped on the bookrack, the Kindle, into about chapter 24, where Pip is under the tutelage of Mr. Pocket and friends with Herbert. Seemed as if Little Dorrit would never end, but it played out after seventy chapters on the treadmill rack. GE is more singular and focused than LD. 

Another thing at the moment is Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo, never read in seminary but now also on the NordiTrak bookrack, English text online with the font hugely enlarged, and nearly through it. Should have saved CDH for Lenten discipline. 

Rereading the Apocrypha and studying about it for Tuesday Morning Bible Seminar and for Sunday School during Epiphany. Those fourteen/fifteen books are all interesting, worth reading, and some of them we’ll read together in class and discuss.

Finally, for both classes reading Mark’s gospel yet one more time again. My favorite gospel. Why? First, oldest, least embellished, fascinating agenda.

TW+