I have the bad habit of buying too many books. Sure, I select each one very carefully,
always with the intention of learning how to improve my personal and spiritual life. But I
keep doing this despite the fact that I've known for years book buying can be dangerous.
The problem, you see, is that my speed limit averages only 5.3 pages per day -- if I
stay awake long enough. This adds up to 37.1 pages per week or one short book a month, but
only if I read 5.3 pages per day -- which I don't. I have a deficiency in my eyelids. They
slam shut whenever the eyeballs move left to right, left to right down a page.
Yet knowing my lack of time and inability to stay awake, I nevertheless do nothing to
resist adding to my book collection. And you should see my collection. It's all well
organized. Books that I've somehow managed to read or give up on (I can't figure out why I
bought Ten Days to Better Ironing) are stored according to category on shelves in
my home office.
Everything else is piled atop my bed's headboard.
Recently, it hit me just how dangerous this addiction can be. I jumped into bed and the
books pounced on me. I'm convinced it was a plot, but out of which book I'm not sure,
since they are all refusing to talk while I'm not reading them.
No doubt each book was vying for my attention. "Read me!" and "No! Read me!"
echoed in my ears as I ducked under the covers for protection. It was the same "read
me" I'd heard when I first saw the titles in a bookstore or catalog.
The books on a person's unread books pile can be very revealing about that person's
life. The titles read like a list of changes we know we need to make but are reluctant to
struggle through.
My pile includes, among 1,217 other titles, How to Manage Your Time and C.S.
Lewis' Miracles (I can see why I bought those two together), When God Has Put
You on Hold (I wonder if there's a book called When You Have Put God on Hold by
Not Reading Your Books), and -- my favorite -- How to Find Time to Do Everything
You Always Wanted to Do: Don't Put THIS Book on Hold!
A couple of years ago, I figured out how to actually get a book read: Injure yourself
and have the doctor order you to stay in bed. When I pulled a major muscle in my back and
was forced to lie near my stack of books, I could almost hear the pages celebrating.
The book I read during those two days was The Lives of Saints. It became a
retreat spent with some of the holiest people who could grace the pages of unread books. I
discovered that when you read the stories of one saint after another, the message of God's
love breaks through in a most powerful way. I emerged from that sick-bed a changed person.
"Why do we have to get sick before we take time off to read?" I asked my
husband. "I'm going to take a bedroom retreat again without first injuring
myself."
Like I said, that was a couple of years ago. I think I'd better buy a book on how to
keep my own promises.
