I got in trouble when caught reading way past my bedtime. Teachers scolded me for reading ahead in the textbook and pointing out errors in the textbooks. One was that we were running out of coal. The other was that rockets could not go into outer space because there was no way to thrust against the vacuum.
I answered the FB graphic, writing, "Yes. I was saddled with scholarships in college, seminary, and doctoral studies."
I blame my mother and my grade school teachers. Mom read to us every night. I remember my sister bawling her eyes out when Lassie came home. At Garfield School, now a condo, the teachers read to us - and we loved it. I remember The Secret Garden.
I bought my own Bible and read it cover to cover.
Today I finished Jan Karon's At Home in Mitford. Recently I read Sinclair Lewis novels suggested by our Lutheran Librarian, Alec Satin.
It's no wonder that those who love Luther's works and the KJV are still avid readers. I expect the percentage to continue decreasing. Years ago, I was teaching undergraduates and giving away my extra books. They grabbed them and thanked me. They even participated in a prize - an almost complete set of Mark Twain. One student asked if he could have my own beaten up leather copy of Moby Dick, which I was giving away - but only to a Melville fan. The next week he burst out thanking me because he was enjoying every paragraph.
My four-hour class of honor students did this during the two mandatory breaks - they pulled out books and read them in silence, never running off to get food, which all other classes did.
Suddenly, one day, students acted as if I had brought cow chips to class. They were perplexed that I would give away books to read, my favorites from the overflow at home.
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| From the movie, starring Gregory Peck, with Orson Welles as the preacher. |
What could be more full of meaning?- for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 8
I must have been 8 when our family went to see the 1956 movie, Moby Dick. The whaling scenes were thrilling and terrifying, but the pulpit scene was puzzling and dark.
We visited Melville's home, where he wrote the novel, where he viewed the mountain's shape from his study as a whale breaching the surface of the ocean.
