The joy of reading
I didn't get to post yesterday as i was rather caught up in preparations for the funeral of the young man who was tragically killed in a road accident at the end of last week and for whom we had a time of memorial and prayer in one of our local churches. I was glad that we had decided to do this as over two hundred of his contemporaries, friends, teachers, family and those who had known and grown up with him in our local communities came to pray, chat, light candles, leave flowers and messages and sign the book of condolence for the family. It was a moving and inspiring time, and a reminder of how even a short life makes an impact upon so many.
Anyway, this morning has been something of a treat - my wife has taken smallest offspring off to see grandad and retrieve one of our dogs from its seaside holiday for the day and my little girl is in school for another couple of hours so i had the morning to myself - and i just sat down and read. Now, as regular visitors will have grasped, I read a lot, and often wade through some quite powerful and solid theology in order to keep my brain ticking over amongst all the 'must do' demands of everyday ministry. But it is rare that i get to sit and plunge into a novel for three hours straight and get about two thirds of the way through a story in one sitting. This morning was, therefore, exceptional. It wasn't a worthy novel, or very funny, in fact it was quite a departure from my usual fare, being one of the Tom Clancy 'power play' series called 'bio strike' - something of what we brits would call a 'ripping yarn' - with sometimes overly great detail of everything from molecular biology to cryptology (it feels a bit like the author feels the need to use the shed loads of info given by his junior research assistants and smacks of being 'too clever by half'.) That said, the pleasure of diving into another world for a few hours, albeit one of intrigue and shadowy dealings, made me think just what an amazing gift the written word is, and how the imagination can be fired and inspired by well written story. There's something about about our calling to be gospel storytellers in that, but as it is my day off I will leave any theological thoughts until later...
Anyway, this morning has been something of a treat - my wife has taken smallest offspring off to see grandad and retrieve one of our dogs from its seaside holiday for the day and my little girl is in school for another couple of hours so i had the morning to myself - and i just sat down and read. Now, as regular visitors will have grasped, I read a lot, and often wade through some quite powerful and solid theology in order to keep my brain ticking over amongst all the 'must do' demands of everyday ministry. But it is rare that i get to sit and plunge into a novel for three hours straight and get about two thirds of the way through a story in one sitting. This morning was, therefore, exceptional. It wasn't a worthy novel, or very funny, in fact it was quite a departure from my usual fare, being one of the Tom Clancy 'power play' series called 'bio strike' - something of what we brits would call a 'ripping yarn' - with sometimes overly great detail of everything from molecular biology to cryptology (it feels a bit like the author feels the need to use the shed loads of info given by his junior research assistants and smacks of being 'too clever by half'.) That said, the pleasure of diving into another world for a few hours, albeit one of intrigue and shadowy dealings, made me think just what an amazing gift the written word is, and how the imagination can be fired and inspired by well written story. There's something about about our calling to be gospel storytellers in that, but as it is my day off I will leave any theological thoughts until later...
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