“Lord! when you sell a man a book you don’t sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue – you sell him a whole new life.  Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night – there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book.”
  ~Christopher Morley 

Over the weekend I finished a novel I had been reading. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks is the intricately woven story of one particular book, the haggadah which is the story told at the seder meal, and the many lives that had touched it over time. It was a valuable book. A beautiful, illuminated book. A book that had taken on a life of its own over time. Throughout the more than 600 years of its life it had come to mean many different things to  wide variety of people. Many people had protected it with their lives. Others had tried to destroy it. The central theme of the book was a search for the path this book had traveled. It was a fascinating read and I commend it to you.

Because I am a book lover extraordinaire, I loved this story on so many levels. I was taken with the number of people, the various hands into which the book had fallen. It caused me to stop and think about the library books I have read over the years. I remember so vividly the old ‘check out’ system of the library. The one where there was a paper card at the back of the book with other people’s names written who had read the book. As a child and teenager, on my visits to our library(which were numerous), I loved looking at who had read a book before me. It was always a treasure to find that someone I thought of as ‘smart’ or ‘cool’ had taken out the same book that I had. Do you remember this now by-gone system? As I think about it now, I miss this connection with the others whose hands have held a book. Being able to see those names was a kind of literary voyeurism.

Of course, I am very entwined with a book that has had a similar journey as the one told about in this novel. The Bible. Its words and pages are ones we attempt to explore every Sunday in worship. Some Sundays we do a better job than others. Like the haggadah in Brooks’ story, it is a book that means many different things to a wide variety of people. It is certainly one which people continue to delve into with joy or skepticism, with hope or mistrust.  It is a book that has caused wars and also helped to bring about peace. It has been illuminated by artists and shunned by those who find its contents false and fanciful. People have also chosen to die for this book or at least what they believe it represents.

On this past Sunday I had the privilege of meeting with a group of people for a look at one particular story from the Bible. We were following a process that is meant to, not only study the scriptures, but also build community through that reading and conversation. It is a wonderful give and take of telling and listening, of being open to hearing the places a particular word or phrase connects with one person and not with another. The process invites people to be open to listening deeply for how they hear the voice of the Holy in the ancient words.

As we were engaging in this process, I was struck once again with the gift of these ancient words. Words not trapped in time but having the ability to jump off the page and nag or comfort. Words that connect us with all the other people who have wrestled in ways similar and very different. For me this is what we mean when we talk about the ‘living word’. These phrases and syllables are not held in a vacuum but are offered to those who want to ‘check out’ the book and see what it might have to say to a single life. Or a communal life. In a particular time and place.

We are shaped by many books, by many stories. If we are careful we continue to carry the words of these books within us so we can call on them at the needed time. Some are simple stories, ones we have known since childhood. Others are complex and rich, tales that create the on-going myths that define our humanity.  What are the books you have held that continue to hold you? What stories are etched on your palms and heart?

In these snowless, winter days, what better time to take stock of all the phrases that have contributed to our life stories, that still fill us with living words?