What's in My Library?

When we moved from Oak Park two years ago, I had around 60 boxes of books. When I packed them, I noted that some of them I had not used in over twenty years. A few had been carted from California to Texas to Chicago and now were on their way to Mississippi. On the premise that if I hadn’t looked at a book in twenty years, I probably wouldn’t look at it any time soon, I gave away some books and discarded as many as I could. And still I had almost 60 boxes left.

When we got to the cabin in the woods, we had very little shelf space in the cabin itself so 95% of the books ended up in storage in the lodge across from the lake. At one point I decided I was going to be industrious and sort the books out. So I lugged them from the storage room to an open area about the size of a basketball court. There I piled the boxes on on a raised platform and on two long tables. I think I managed to go through two boxes before I gave up the project. Partly it was time-consuming and partly I couldn’t decide what I might need sometime in the future.    

Having most of my books in storage turned out to be a blessing of sorts because I realized how much I could do without. Books for a pastor are the tools of his trade, and the more he has, the better he feels, or something like that. But I discovered that I didn’t have to have all my books around me all the time. If I really needed something, I could get it out of storage, which I did from time to time. And with more and more resources available on the Internet or on CD or DVD, I could concentrate on having a few choice books on hand. When we moved to our new home in June, I decided to leave most of my books in the lodge. I took only those books that I thought I might actually read.