At the Connecticut/Massachusetts border on I-84 there is a unique restaurant that not only has good food but also allows you to browse shelves of books and take a book home – free. It’s one of my favorite places. This past week I found a treasure. Before my eyes was a copy of Conrad Richter’s Trees. I was ten years old when I read it. I could hardly wait to get home to once again lose myself in the forests of Pennsylvania and Ohio when Indians roamed between the walnut and oak trees. Soon I was absorbed, not in the story as I was as a boy, but this time in the quality of writing. Richter’s descriptions are awesome. After the first ten pages I left my dictionary on my lap because I kept getting up to look up a word. Did I really know those words when I was ten or did I just skip them? If I knew them I have a terrible memory.
If it’s been a few years (decades) since you read one of the Gospels maybe it’s time for a reread. You have matured and you are bringing a different mind to the text. Authentic reading is a mental dialog in which you bring to the page just as much as you take away. A careful reread will surprise you with ideas you did not find there the first time around. Your more mature mind gives the Holy Spirit so much life with which to work. Try David and Goliath, Daniel with the lions, and other stories you think you know. You are in for a surprise. Many of the proverbs will make you smile.
Written by Roger Bothwell on May 2, 2013
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org