Books, books, and more books

In Ecuador, there´s really not a whole lot do outside of work and neighborhood time. We have prayer every night, and we also have spirituality and community nights once every week, but other than that, there´s a lot of down time. We´ve been spending it in community a lot, but I´ve found myself getting wrapped up in books. Not just any books though: I find that I try to pick books that are from known writers or from titles that I´ve heard of in the past. Or writers that I´ve heard of from elsewhere. So far, I´ve read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, Radical Compassion by Gary Smith, SJ, The Shack by William Young, and now I´m reading Sex God: The Endless Connection between Spirituality and Sexuality by Rob Bell, a pastor at an Evangelical church. Each book has given me interesting thoughts and feelings after I´ve finished them, and I marvel at the transferrance of ideas between people.

What might this be, you may ask? Well, I think it´s interesting that words can translate such meaning to people. The fact that I could read a book and have my own beliefs rocked a little bit, challenged, questioned, is interesting. What´s even more interesting is that it doesn´t have to happen with someone sitting directly in front of me. It happens through a piece of paper. Someone sat down, penned these words down, and they were published for everyone to see, read, and injest, so that they, too, can make this a part of their own beliefs and life. How fascinating is that?

Then I think, well, the difference between a book and a person is a lifeforce. I go over to neighbor´s houses, and no doubt some of them can´t read. No doubt some of them can´t look at words on a page and understand what they mean. But yet, whenever I speak with them it´s like the pages of an incredible story coming to life. It´s like a real life version of your favorite stories: A Tale of Two Cities? Look at the lives of people in Monte Sinai and the Puntilla. Death of a Salesman? Look at the thousands of fathers here, trying to make an honest and help their families succeed, but are stuck in their old ways, struggling in jobs that don´t make that much money, hoping that they can keep their jobs for another way. Every day I can talk to someone who experiences these stories first hand, in life.

So then, it seems, a lifeforce is found in the pages of each book. Through the simple fact that I crack the spine of a book I´m asking it to pour out the beliefs and leanings of its author. And yet, there are also those who don´t crack spines, but yet still pour their beliefs and leanings out to me, so that I may learn and injest these things into my own life. Which makes me wonder: is there anything that doesn´t bring life? Is there anything in the world that doesn´t somehow allow life to take place? Even in this place, where cane houses and dirt roads are common place, where every family is striving to better their lives for their children, hoping to make enough money to continue building a more sufficient living space, life can take place, and it takes place to the fullest.

In the end, I don´t know if this blog entry makes a lot of sense. Words, books, lifeforces, life. The transferrance of life. The way people live. Reading books brings life to all people because people´s lives are in the books, fiction or not. Talking to people here is like reading a book because people´s lives are in the stories they tell. Maybe everything in life leads people to life, even the tradgedies. Jeez, this makes me want to read a good book.