Read a Book. Change Your Life. Change the World.

"The right stories, read at the right time, can be as important as shelter or food. They can help us to escape calamity, and heal us in its aftermath.” --Terri Windling, American fantasy author

Can books save us? Save our world?

If one could be saved by, say, the sheer volume of books consumed and collected, then “Hallelujah!” I’m saved! You see, I kind have a book accumulation…well, problem. I’m not a book hoarder but I do have something like 1,000 books, probably more, scattered all over my house. Books on bookshelves and end tables. Books piled high upon a bureau I long ago stopped using. Books on the dining room table and the kitchen table, on the shelves in bedroom closets. My nightstand groans under the weight of four stacks of books and yet, I still buy more books. 

I’m definitely a bibliophile which means “a lover of books.” And yes, a bibliomaniac meaning a person who, “has an insatiable desire to collect books.” The Japanese have a wonderful word for folks who acquire books and then let them pile up all over the house—tsundoku.

Now that is absolutely me. Maybe you too.

I have lots of family and friends who are book crazy. My colleague Scott and I used to go to preacher’s conventions (there is such a thing!) and he’d buy so many books on the art of homiletics (another cool word!), that we’d have to visit the local post office before going to the airport. With so many tomes purchased, he needed to mail them home, lest he get penalized for overweight luggage!

Some folks read with a Kindle, or Kobo or iPad and don’t own too many volumes. But I need the feel and the heft and tactile activity, the physicality needed to read a paper book.

Which brings me back to my original questions.

Can books save us? Can books save the world?

Creation certainly needs saving: from wars of bombs that hurt and kill and wars of words that hurt and kill the spirit. We need saving from the fears and suspicions that separate us from fellow children of God. We need saving from staying on our own little islands of identity and beliefs.   We need to be reminded of the goodness of the world and its citizens, the common good, and God’s good too.

And all of this can be found in books.

Books and the stories and ideals they contain can teach us, inspire us and empower us. Rescue us from our worst impulses. Books can give us the wisdom and resolve to resist Herodian wannabee kings and their sycophantic minions.  Books feed our spirits.    

Read or reread the science fiction of George Orwell’s “1984” or Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale” and get a glimpse into the powers and principalities we are called to overcome. Read Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and remember the eternal need for compassion and simple human decency.  Read Alex Haley’s biography of Malcolm X’s or Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and learn that resistance against oppressive institutional and individual racism has been going on too long and must go on. Poetry can save our souls too, by Maya Angelou. "You may write me down in history, With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt, But still, like dust, I'll rise." By Emily Dickinson, ““Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all.”

Read a book. Have hope. Rise up!       

So many books, old and new, dogeared from so many readings or fresh off the shelf from your local independent bookstore…these are waiting to change you, me, and this world, of that I am sure. So, let’s buy them and borrow them and lend them. Then with a favorite beverage at hand, read. Just read. Read as we lean against the pole on the subway. “Read” as we stream an audio book in the car. Read in bed each night, and pick up where you left off the night before, and turn the pages and be transported somewhere else.

Books have always changed this world, challenged norms, and started revolutions. Think of the Bible or Thomas Paine’s booklet “Common Sense” or “The Diary of Anne Frank.” Books expand our minds. Enlarge our hearts. Shape our souls.

Can books save us?

I think so.

I know so.

God, I hope so.

(Two world changing books I am reading right now: “Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad" by Eric Foner and "The Ragged Edge of Night" by Olivia Hawker, a story about the German resistance to Nazism set in a small rural village.  What are you reading that helps you change the world? Please let me know!)

(The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect the views of the people and church I serve nor the United Church of Christ.)

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

 

The War on Minnesota: It Can Happen Anywhere. WAKE UP!

Minnesota: Human Decency and Hotdish    --slogan seen on a T-shirt

Dear Minnesota,

I wanted to write you a note to let you know how heartbroken and angry I am, as are many others here in Massachusetts and New England, about the chaos and violence you are facing right now, all at the hands of ICE and the federal government. The killing of Renee Good, the intimidation and violence toward citizens and non-citizens alike and the targeting of brown skinned people is just so wrong, so unjust, so awful, so Ungodly. As an American and as a person of faith, I’m ashamed of what Uncle Sam claims to be doing in the name of our “homeland,” and I’m embarrassed too for my fellow folks of faith who actually support such human cruelty.

And all of this is happening in one of the most unique and amazing and beautiful parts of our country.  Minnesota is a place and a people unlike anywhere else in the world.

I’ve discovered this truth in the more than thirty-two years I’ve visited there and come to love  the North Star State. I have two beloved Godchildren there. I watched them grow up and play lots of baseball games on warm summer nights and always, there was the after game trip to Dairy Queen. I cherish two fellow ministers there whom I so love and respect for the work they’ve done and still do in the name of God’s love, how they each embody simple human decency, midwestern kindness at its best.  I’ve sharpened my writing skills in Minnesota, with talented fellow creators, and found peace and solace at a Benedictine school in the central part of the state.  I’ve visited up north where the headwaters of the Mississippi begin, in a small trickling stream and then grow into the mighty, mighty big muddy, by the time it gets to the Twin Cities.

Minnesota is my second home, my home away from home; hence my hurt and heartbreak right now.

I wonder if more and more people actually knew just how wonderful are in the land of “You betcha!” and Minnesota Nice (it’s a real thing), maybe they’d have more compassion towards the state. Perhaps Uncle Sam might not attack it as if it is some wild animal that needs to be put down and yes, that is the energy of human destruction and pain that is happening on the ground there.

I know.

I’ve spoken firsthand to a friend whose daughter was pepper sprayed at her high school by ICE agents stalking their human prey.  I’ve heard stories from another friend about driving Somali high school kids to school because their parents are just too rightfully scared of going out in public. Scores of businesses are closed. Schools are going remote. One colleague spoke of what a ghost town his city has become. When people are this scared, of course they stay in and hunker down and just try to survive.

Which means of course if it can happen there it can happen here too. 

Imagine three thousand ICE agents marauding through the streets of Framingham or Lawrence or Springfield, dragging people out of cars, smashing windows, kicking down doors, chasing down folks who are guilty of wanting a better life for themselves and their loved ones. That possibility of an ICE invasion here isn’t just some imagined paranoid fever dream. It’s not an imagined nightmare that could never happen to us.

If our friends in the Land of 10,000 Lakes are not safe, then no one in the United States is safe. Not really. Not anymore. If they can come for them they can come for us and come for the people we love and know as neighbors and friends. Coaches and teachers and gardeners and caregivers. Business owners and fellow church members. Folks who sing in a choir with us and live right next door.    

Do we need to figure out how to deal with immigration in the United States in the largest sense, and make our system sane, organized and up to date? Do we need to ensure that undocumented dangerous criminals are found and sent home?

Absolutely. Yes.

But let’s do so through dialogue, the rule of law, due process, non-violence and simple human care and decency. Not at the end of the barrel of a gun, nor with the weighted heft of a blackjack poised to strike.

Minnesota… you do not deserve this treatment. No one does. Not in America. Not anywhere. And so for those of us who try our best to love all of our neighbors, no one left out…and for those of us who still love our nation and want it to stand up for mercy, welcome and kindness….let us resist, resist, resist, and always with non-violence….

In Minnesota, in Maine, in Massachusetts, anywhere the innocent and the peaceful and the powerless are threatened. God help us all.

(The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect the views of the people and church I serve nor the United Church of Christ.)

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.

 

Grant Us Courage to Look For Stars on Cold Winter Nights

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”   --Sarah Williams, “The Old Astronomer to His Pupil” 1868

This is the time of year when it feels as if it is the absolute darkest in the natural world and yes, sometimes in the human world too. Even though winter solstice was two weeks ago, the 24 hour period in this part of the world that is longest night of the year, still, right now just seems to feel darker somehow, at least for me. Maybe you too.  

The holidays are fully ended and as we pack up the lights and take down the tree, as we put away the wrapping paper and the greeting cards and the menorah and the nativity set, it’s kind of like we say to winter, “Ok. You are absolutely here, and right now. No more celebratory December distractions.  It’s cold. It’s dark.”

But then there are the stars, the amazing, miraculous, blazing January stars.  These seem to twinkle more brightly right now.  We stop on a long walk in the woods just past dusk, or we stand in the driveway after getting home from work, feet crunching the snow or we gaze out the window after we’ve put the lights out for bed and then we look out and we look up and….

STARS!

Scores of stars on a frigid evening, dotting the heavens, twinkling and set like diamonds in an ink black winter sky. A sky that that looks so sharp and clear, it takes our breath away.  A January sky somehow that embodies the chill and shadows of this sometimes bleak “what’s next?” time of year. The calendar can feel oh so empty.  Loved ones have returned home. And though many love this time of year for its outdoor pastimes, so many of us might instead feel tempted to just curl up in a ball under the blanket on the couch and declare….

“Wake me up when it’s spring!”   

The world feels shadow filled and cold right now too.  As if two wars weren’t enough, now Creation’s got a third in Venezuela. Just three days ago, millions of people saw their health insurance premiums, once subsidized by Uncle Sam, wither away like melting snow.  Food benefits too.  To heat the house or to feed the family? 

If I had to assign a temperature to the last year in our civic and national political life, I’d say it’s been unmerciful and bone chilling, especially for the poor, and so much of this chill is courtesy of our bullying, bombastic, ice cold commander in chief. The command by Jesus that we are to  care for these, the least of our brothers and sisters, seems to have been forgotten by many of my fellow “religious” folk. For that I am sorry. But still, 2026 beckons.

It is here and we must carry on.

We must continue in faith to look for the stars and yes, especially in the depths of winter.  In a way it is so much easier to live within the promise of spring or the warmth of summer.  It takes courage to push back against the winter cold and to push back against winters of our discontent and yet, this is where many of us find ourselves.

So how to live?

The only path and life I see is to carry on with courage. Godly courage. Gritty courage.  Surprising courage. Personal courage. Communal courage. Prayerful courage, remembering the words of one wise soul, Dorothy Bernanrd, who said that courage is finally just fear that has said tis prayers.

So, just as the stars shine so brightly right now, so too must people of goodwill and people with good hearts shine as well. Pray without ceasing and act for the good without ceasing. We need some light and we need some illumination and we need to be the people who have the guts to light that one candle instead of cursing the darkness.

Williams is right in her poetic courage, and especially in January as the stars come out bright and bold. Look up into heavens and remember and trust…

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”  

Courage, my friends.  Courage to see the stars.

(The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect the views of the people and church I serve nor the United Church of Christ.)

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.