purposeful reading
Sunday, February 3, 2008
![Reading the book THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN by Paul Elie, I find myself influenced. It describes the spiritual then artistic transformation of Merton, Day, O’Connor and Percy. Writers who, drawn to the universal values of catholicism, in turn found their voice, their calling and their artistic muscles. They, influenced by authors before them, makes me want to hunt down the writers they read such as Eliot, Kierkegaard, Dosteovsky, Kafka, St. Augustine, a’ Kempis, Loyola, St John of the Cross, Tolkein (no, not that one, I’ll watch the movie instead!), Tolstoy, Hopkins, Henry James, Dante, Aquinas, Huxley, Chaucer, Joyce, Dickens and C.S. Lewis.
Thomas Merton is one of my favorite author. I’ve read most of his published books and am inspired by the depth of his spiritually and his masterly use of language. It wasn’t always like this Paul Elie explained. Merton was a rebel, a man who wanted nothing of the world but was continually drunk of it’s trappings. His story of conversion, as with Day, O’ Connor and Percy is a story of grace. God relentlessly hunted them down like a hound after it’s prey. He pursued them through the books they read, people they fraternize with and through their physical space. He was relentless even through abortion, fornication and their indifference. Not even sin can stop God from His chase. [They] loved [Him], because He first loved [them]. 1 John 4:19.
I haven’t read a fiction book in more than a year. I can’t get myself to read one. Paul Elie’s exposition on the influence of books and earlier authors on Merton, Day, O’ Connor and Percy drew me to reading fiction again. Taking my cue from them, I too will read with my life as the mirror and the measure. Hence I put down Elie’s book for the moment (I’m 1/4 through it) and, with anticipation, leaf through Herman Hesse’s STEPPENWOLF. The introduction, “His humanity and his searching philosophy developed in his novels...”, hints me to inquire: How is my humanity? What is my searching philosophy?](7662B562-F6CC-4A6E-A1AE-C5C250F1A368_files/shapeimage_1.png)
