Old books in their latter days
first rejected by the tv-sated teenager,
cast aside by the homeschool mom at the booksale
(and the semi-intellectual bachelor passing through)
piled and piled in a dark storage room.
Finally, rejected too many times; marked for destruction.
Books with real spines.
True literature, history written as it was made. Culture.
But what does it matter? Weighted down by all that Is today, why should I cry for dead books of yesterday?
Gathered by eager young hands, the old are given one last chance--to be wrenched apart and filled with blank pages,to give a vintage appearance to a journal-- stealing the cover, trashing the heart.
Oh this feels like such a wrong... such a crime... a book represents so much heart, someone wrote it, someone forgotten, someone loved, someone lovely, someone lonely, someone funny. Oh God, can we know everyone someday, in eternity? Someday can we take the time, and time again to know the hearts that have come and gone? Can those ideas and dreams be disinterred and reexamined and appreciated? Or is all this a wretched futility you want us to let go of, to bask in your presences, forgetting all else, an eternal nirvana?
Feels like such a wrong, such a crime, because everything in life for me--every sentence, every joke, every picture, every leaf, is a parable for a soul, for life, lives, living, people, community. It's just a book--the earth spinning most certainly does NOT depend on preserving the words therein....
but oh, I my heart keens.
Wish I could renounce everything in life but reading for a year to do justice to libraries and the written word. Would we read "broken" literature in Eternity? my heart is surely so wrong in this. My caring is not for the books, I could wake up tomorrow being quite "over" this subject. It's for decrepitness... decay... work... THOUGHTS... gone to waste... Ecclesiastes... none of it matters, does it? Millions of books go to show we can't fight the truth of Ecclesiastes; even a heart willing to remember the works of the past can't keep up with the present and the past and dreams of the future all at once.
Oh why, oh why. I am so frustrated with the analog of time, the one-way dimension. Why can't time go sideways--why can't I in a moment stop and read for a year, then continue on with real life?
conclusion...Dissatisfaction like this is beautiful, beautiful in my undisciplined, unordered life. Given the choice to wander throughout time as I pleased, I'd completely lose track of what is forward or backward. As in fact all natural laws are wonderful in their confinement. Laws, in fact, are wonderful things in their unifying element. Jumping from natural laws to cultural laws, I wish we had more social rules that were generally held to. Not that casually people must adhere to them, but that if you are in a strange setting, you can default to a certain polite set of rules where you "can't go wrong." And I don't mean table manners, but things like how long you stay at someone's house when you dropped in, what dating is.... My personal conviction is that dating should be encouraged among young people--going on dates with people you're not romantically interested in, but doing each other the honor of getting to know each other as equally-valuable human beings. I am so fed up with the unspoken "You are not mate material so your mind & heart don't matter."
But that comes back to the castoff-book collection dilemma. We have to make choices, choices of elimination! Our human limitations absolutely require it! Even God in human form couldn't spend time one on one with every person. That's not what he was here for. But if we all followed His example, nobody would go untouched, unheart, unloved. Likewise (this is backwards, I should say this part first...) if everyone read as much as they should, no proper book would go untouched, unread, ignored.
So for books, all I can do is practice reading, and encourage others to read, and let go my a "savior-of-books complex". Besides, I have other interests.
And for people, I also need to practice what I preach. Love spreads. But a drop of water can only spread so far on a piece of paper, if more water doesn't come from somewhere. There's One, who says
"Come to me."
(we say, wait til we've cleaned up)
"Come to me."
(We say, hold on, we're really messy. just a minute.)
"Come to me."
(We say, I'm sorry, I've gone too far, I don't even have the strength to shed this dirty cloak.)
"Come to me."
(We say, it hurts to look at You, You so clean, me so filthy. Let me hide for a while and sleep off my guilt; then I will come and acknowledge yesterday's sin with the right kind of sorrow.)
"Come to me! I am the one who washes you clean. I am the one who changes you. Come to me when you are filthy, broken, nasty, and lazy. Your dirt can't rub off on me. Come to me."
And so often, in the end, it is He who comes to us. He gives us living water, and when we are standing in that wonderful downpour, we can't touch our surroundings without leaving a mark. Strategy, apologetics, and all the goodwill in the world will only accomplish as much as the sum of efforts. God is an external source of love, light, and washing... refreshing cleanliness. You don't get the clean-feeling by hiding in the basement, or by beating yourself, or by depriving yourself. You get the clean-feeling by stepping under the rushing water, and letting the dirt wash down the drain. Wash me clean, Lord, day after day. Dirt still sticks to me, God.... wash me, wash me... and wash me again, I am dirty and I have dirty people to touch.
