Okay, I admit it! I am a bibliophile. If you remember the “root words” you learned in junior high school you know that bibliophile means “lover of books.” And I love books! I love the smell of bookstores. I love the way well-loved antique books feel in my hand with their use-worn leather covers fraying at the edges from all the hands that have eagerly opened their pages. I love brand new hot-off-the-press books that promise me a story, an insight, or even an argument to test my assumptions.
I love children’s books, too, all the way from classics no child should miss like Wind in the Willows, Treasure Island, and Gulliver’s Travels to books that have captured this generation of kids and enticed them to leave their I-Boxes and computers to enter the more exciting universe of imagination like Lord of the Rings, Lemony Snicket, and A Wrinkle in Time.
I love deep books of theology and philosophy that make my brain itch trying to wrap my mind around their concepts, and I love dense, engaging stories like the regime change bestseller A Gentleman in Moscow.
And then there are the golden moments spent with collections of poetry, poetry that distills our lives into sharp unforgettable phrases that carve our very identities on the oak trees of our souls.
I never leave home without a book. (Even in church, I usually have a book in my purse, just in case.) One of my phobias is the fear of getting stuck on a plane, in the check-out line, in the hospital waiting room, or at Starbucks without a book. And when I have come the closest to losing my faith in God and mankind, it has been a book that has come to my rescue.
Thank you to all those men and women who have walked the lonely writer’s life. Thank you to Shakespeare, Frost, Steinbeck, Sandberg, Dickinson, L’Engle, Merton, Buechner, Dillard, Yancey, Colson, O’Conner, Faulkner, Wolfe, C. S. Lewis, Ken Gire, Calvin Miller, Millay, Silverstein, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Dickens, Molière—writers of so many enriching books that have challenged our minds, schooled our wit, inspired our hearts and, yes, saved our faith. We are indebted to you. May we show our gratitude by reading to our babies, telling stories that teach principles of truth to our children, discuss concepts with our young people and share ideas with our peers by passing around and discussing great books.
And when it comes to the Book of all books, may we never get so focused on arguing about the words that we miss the Word that came to walk among us to lead us into all truth.
