A couple of weeks ago I ran across a collection of essays that included a couple of important pieces on the importance and value of reading.  While these kinds of essays may be a dime a dozen these two stood out for me as being of particular importance.  The main reason for this is the identity and life experience of the writers. 

The first essay is simply entitled "Learning How to Read and Write" and was written by Frederick Douglass.  In this paper Douglass focuses on the importance of learning how to read and the dangers he faced when making the effort to grow into a new life beyond slavery.  The second piece is simply entitled "Learning How to Read" and was by written by the controversial Malcolm X.  It dealt with the process he used in order to learn how to read. 

Both writers were African Americans struggling with imprisonment.  Douglass was imprisoned by the blinkered thinking and violence of his masters and slavery in general while X was doing time in an actual jail cell. 

For both individuals reading opened up the world in a way that helped them build new lives and contribute to the building of a new and renewed community. 

For whatever reason, it seems as if we're living in an age that doesn't value reading in the same way our ancestors omce did.  Perhaps it's because we take it for granted and can't understand how it can inspire and challenge us to new ways and opportunities.  Perhaps it's because we live in a world of relative safety where we can read without the fear of death or injury. 

For both Douglass and Malcolm X reading saved their lives and helped them save others.  Perhaps this is one of the reasons why we have to encourage students and the general public itself to continue making the effort to read and think and find out more about the world around them.  Douglass and X both rose above poverty and slavery to build a new future with the people around them.  These are important reminders for those of us living in a time where we value everything that is safe, instant and easy. 

Mike

Some Thoughts on Some Practical Reading

This past week I had the chance to read yet another book I feel should be added to a top ten or twenty list for clergy and lay people helping out in their congregations. This Pulitzer prize winning work contributes to that pool of knowledge from which we draw each and every day of our Christian and professional lives. This book I'm talking about is Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Scribner's, 2010).

Emperor of All Maladies is exactly what it claims to be. It's the life story of an all too familiar disease that has been known by many names throughout the centuries. It's been described by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. It's puzzled scientists and medical types for the past 500 years. Only recently have we begun to really understand the process where "normal" cell growth erupts into something terrifying, chaotic, and potentially lethal.

Mukherjee goes beyond the survey of facts and statistics we can find in other places and resources. He tries to get into the "mind" of the disease. He tries to figure out what makes it tick and how it will ultimately find its end. To accomplish this he combines research, personal stories, and case histories from his medical practice. He delves into the historic and scientific literature that has been generated in so many different times and places. He works with and listens to those living with and desperately fighting the cancer that has affected their lives.

It's not always a happy or pleasant read. Making our way through Emperor of All Maladies can be an extremely intense and emotional experience. Perhaps the best reason to pick it up, however, is because it does cover all the bases we need to help, serve and understand people in our lives who are diagnosed with cancer. When friends, family and parishioners tell us what is happening in our lives we can lisen with an informed ear and use this information when caring for them throughout their experience.

The Emperor of All Maladies is an important book and a must read. Given what's happening in each and every one of our lives it's something that should be on every bookshelf and in every office.

Read wisely and fearlessly,
Mike Jones