Reading

Reading is a pastime that I have forsaken for studies and play for 6years, but thanks to God and Joyce, I have re-acquired my passion for reading. Boring as it may sound to some, I am very excited about all the books I can peel my eyes to at home, on the bus, before and after church and carolling performances and rehearsals.

I finished Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom, the author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven (in two days! something I hold a bit of pride in). Save the part about religions, I love how Albom uses chronological flashbacks whose timeline becomes eventually blurred with the present and the (imagined?) future, while keeping each chapter short and concise, visually reader-friendly for modern people.

I learnt quite a lot from the book too, one of the more prominent ones being the tension of opposites. It is a conflict between what one wants to do and what one has to do. I was reminded about being true to oneself, building my own little subculture.

'The little things, I can obey.

But the big things - how we think, what we value - those you must choose for yourself.

You can't let anyone -or any society- determine those for you.'

page 155

Morrie's emotional strength, which includes admitting that he griefs over his increasingly wasted body in the morning and becoming joyful after that, is something I need to learn to grasp. Simply because I am one who can dwell on something sad and pretty trivial for days. I have this bad habit of switching off and entering my self-enclosed during gatherings. Morrie says this is wrong. We must spend time with people around us, because love is cultivated as a result, and Man needs love to live. To invest in the human family. At the beginning and the end of life, we need others to survive. But Morrie says.

'But here's the secret:

in between, we need others as well.'

page 157

After all that giving of his philosophical outlook on life, it's hard not to have a lump in your throat and shed tears when he says goodbye on his fourteenth Tuesday with Albom.

I just went to the library and borrowed four books from a collection of Hans Christian Andersen Illustrated Fairytales. I don't believe in multiple book reading because it impairs my ability to fully appreciate a book. So, I shall finish my current book, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. Thank God, my investment in Christian literature so far has brought me unexpectingly rewarding returns. For example, I never knew that a shepherd carves his own unique mark onto the ear of his sheep so that his herds may be identified from that of another shepherd's. When the mark is made, 'there is pain for both sides'. Similarly, when we accept Christ, we bear the mark of the cross, and have to take up the the burden of the cross and follow Him. Christ's pain was borne during His descent, notably on Crucifixion Day, and ours will be borne in our lifetime.

Thick or thin, colourful or black-and-white, long or short, pick books that you like! Even if it means going to the Information Books (12 years old) section to get them. : )