Thur May 19: Book Day

We will simply confess: we love bookstores.

We can both list for you our favorite bookstores in cities across America. We love used bookstores that sell hidden treasures in the publishing world, independent bookstores that sell authors we have never heard of, bookstores that are part of coffee shops, and really any place that smells like books.

This blog entry is being typed in a bookstore (next to the diet section because it's one of the few that does not call out and become a distraction).

We know all sorts of intriguing facts about books. For instance, for every book you select you are not selecting at least 1000 other books according to how many books a good reader reads in a lifetime. We can list the 100 books that have mattered most to us. And at any given time both of us are probably in the middle of at least 5 different books.

We love words. For Mike, words are pivotal to the screen plays and plays he is writing. Griff is working on a doctoral project that involves preaching and literature. Words are a large part of our lives.

Thus, books matter to us because words matter.

Words are what we do. They are our tool.

Some people get to work with their hands, they work with blue prints or with tools or machinery. Pastors work with words and story. These are our tools of the trade.

One of the saddest losses in our times is the loss of reading. People do not read like they used to and this is a shame.  Thus our challenge today, think of a book you have always wanted to read and start reading it.

We are always reading a book together and meet weekly to discuss this. Currently we are working our way through Moby Dick with Les Miserables next on the list.

We believe in this activity today. By reading a good story, you will start to question the story of your life and it will hopefully cause you to live a better story. In this, a good book is a lot like a good sermon.

We can't wait to hear what you are spending the summer reading. You will get lost in a world of words and there is no better place to be lost.