Post Confessional Blues

So. I confessed here at Signify back in October (2010) to the strangely large number of books that I read all at the same time. The sad thing is, I found another stack of three or four more books that I failed to round up in my counting, so it’s even worse than I confessed at first.

Since then, I have honesty been trying to do better. My usual MO is to have about six or seven books, constantly jumping between them, with a backup bunch of nine or ten that I can switch in and out of the "current" reading if I feel the need, with a bunch more in strategic places like the car, for instance, which I read while waiting for the kids or whatever. And I have some larger books that are almost like textbooks, on history and art and such, that I often read in bits and pieces. And then I have the things I read for my work, which are many.

But I have been trying to do better. I have stacked up all the books in one spot. I selected three of them. One for next to the bed, which I think of as my “fun” read: a novel or biography, that kind of thing. Another one to go with me wherever I am around the house, which I think of as my “learning” read, which is the science or art or whatever book. And then one current “read for work” book, which is tough because I have a lot of things I need to keep up on with my work. Three books maximum. And I’ve really been trying to stick with this. I’m trying very consciously to NOT read the other books in the stack until I’ve finished one of the three. I’m trying to keep it at three, which seems reasonable.

I’m serious about this. But it’s hard to do.

I honestly find myself almost accidentally taking a book from the stack, you know, almost by reflex. They haunt me. So I have to stop myself. Sit it back down. Move on. And, on top of that, I just got a new book that I have to wait to read, which I don’t want to do. I just don’t. And if I choose to read it next, that means the things in the stack stay in the stack even longer.

Sigh.

I’m going to try to stick with this, but I know it’s not going to be easy. And I don’t even have a compelling moral reason to do it. I wish I did, as that helps me most of the time. I have no problem at all with the idea of doing some things simply because they are the right thing to do. There is a lot of peace in that. But in this case it's just about trying to discipline myself and be more productive and less scatter brained than I already am.

Oh, the humanity.



Romans 7:14-8:4
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Confession

I notice that there are a lot of what I would call “confessional” blogs on the blogosphere. These are blogs where people feel compelled to reveal intimate, personal things about themselves to complete strangers for the sake of being honest. Or something. Which is fine. Perhaps it has a kind of healing aspect to it, like confession can have. This is why they have support groups in AA, right?

I have to confess, I’m not big on this kind of thing unless I know the person. I do a lot of confessing myself, on a daily basis, to God. And I have some people very close to me who I talk to about what’s going on in my life. I try to make them aware of my struggles without milking them for sympathy. I believe in being honest, and I like sharing my experiences with people, but everyone does not need to be all up in my laundry all the time, ya know? That's just me.

Still, I have decided on this day, for no apparent reason, to confess something about myself that I find a little troubling? Disturbing? Maybe just unusual? I don’t see it as a huge problem. Maybe it is, I don’t know. I know it’s not “normal.” Perhaps you will decide. I’ve hinted at it in the past, which I do a lot. I’m a big hinter. It’s part of my passive aggressive personality disorder. If you really want to know me, you are going to have to pay attention. (See, there’s some more confession, but that’s not the thing I’m confessing.)

The thing I’m going to put out there today is the disturbing number of books I read at the same time. I’m simply going to list them here, to show you how twisted it is, and you can think what you will. Offer support? Identify with me? Think I’m nuts? But I will have confessed it and we’ll see if it makes me or anyone else feel any better. Frankly, I doubt it. But I’m willing to try. For the sake of brevity, whatever, I’ll only list the books that I have read at least two chapters of. If I’ve only read one chapter, I won’t include it, but they are there, waiting in the shadows of my own personal Little Library of Horrors. “Read me, Seymour, read me!”

Okay. Here’s the list, compiled from what I think of as my different “reading stacks” strategically placed throughout our house (and in my car) in no particular order. Sometimes I finish a book in a few days, sometimes it takes years, but I’ve finished reading practically every book I’ve ever started, except for a few that I found, well, unreadable.

Please don’t hold it against me:

1. I Walked the Line - Vivian Cash
2. This Perfect Day - Ira Levin
3. Mister Slaughter - Robert McCammon
4. The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly
5. Rediscovering Church - Lynne and Bill Hybels
6. The Koran - Muhammed
7. The Strong Willed Child - Dr. James Dobson
8. A Brief History of Time (rereading) - Stephen Hawking
9. Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era - James M. McPherson
10. Mountains of the Mind - Robert MacFarlane
11. The Bible (rereading) - God
12. Ray Harryhausen, An Animated Life - Ray Harryhausen
13. The Dark Pond - Joseph Bruchak
14. Raising Your Child, Not Your Voice - Dr. Duane Cuthbertson
15. Gordon Ramsay Makes It Easy - Gordon Ramsay
16. Eyewitness to Power - David Gergen
17. Celebration, U.S.A. - Frantz/Collins
18. Gregor and the Prophecy of Bain
19. Calvin’s Institutes - Calvin
20. I Was Right On Time - Buck O’Neil
21. So You Want to Be Like Christ - Chuck Swindoll
22. Fit Bodies, Fat Minds - Os Guinness
23. Shadowplay - Tad Williams
23.Until I Find You - John Irving
24. Blessings In Disguise - Alec Guinness
25. Mr. Darwin’s Shooter - Roger McDonald
26. Art: A New History - Paul Johnson

Read anything good lately?



Peace to you.


© LW Publishing 2010