THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT
One Amazon order at a time, my bookshelf has filled…three times. 
Three bookcases filled with spiritual classics produces a tremendous pressure on a person who grew up learning to “finish your dinner. Eat what you put on your plate.” With food, I learned always to consider carefully how much I thought I could eat…and then serve less than that. I could always go back for more. That worked with food.
For books? You can rightly assume that I have not read every single book in my three bookcases. It’s not that I don’t try. In fact, just halfway through reading book one, I am tantalized with book two and open its cover. With books one and two underway, I can’t resist the new book that just arrived and crack it open. Then, trying to complete even one of the three books, I carry the pile around the house and in the car, looking for quiet times when I can concentrate on reading a few pages.
The only reward that keeps me from despair are the life journeys I enjoy with tremendous people of faith and their wisdom and inspiration. It is a conversation across the centuries with the man who began the monastic movement, with the young woman who teaches me to be content with my 
smallness, and with the man and woman who were each compelled to save one suffering person…and thus have saved thousands.
Not only the books, but the people who wrote them, inspire me. And I want them to inspire others.
Unfortunately, books no longer reign supreme. They share the stage with American Idol, News Action Alerts, the theater’s latest blockbuster, YouTube, Facebook…Twitter. People who were once patient enough to read Moby Dick now want you to wrap up your point in 140 characters. An entire civilization twitters back and forth over trivial pursuits.
Slowly, born of three separate plans, an idea germinated to bring order to my life.
Firstly, I pulled the plug…on the outside world. On Sundays, I turned my back on the electronic universe…I-Phone, television, computers, and any other temptation that required a battery or an outlet. Amazed at the time made available for other pursuits, beginning with my proverbial stack of three books, I luxuriated in silence and reading.
Secondly, I went on a diet…a book diet. Inspired by a Carmelite nun, I quit buying books and gave attention to the treasures I already had. This young nun, with all the quiet time in the world to read, had only six books on her shelf. Six. I scanned the titles on my shelf. Did I really need to read them all? If I had to choose six…could I choose six? If not, I could certainly downsize.
Thirdly, I demanded more…of less. Intent on making it through one book to get to the next, I was embarrassed that a week after finishing a book I loved, I was scarcely able to remember what I had read. The words on the page went through my eyes, passing so quickly through my mind that they never had time to settle into my heart. This was not the point of reading a book. Especially wisdom books written by saints.
Three plans converged one day as I scribbled notes for remembrance from the book I was reading. Fearing that all my good reading would result in forgetting what I read, I decided to become a serious student under the direction of this wise man. I would slow down, contemplate the 
advice he offered in chapter one, and write a reflection on it. Time didn’t matter. It was no longer about getting to the end. It was about gaining insight from him and applying it to my life.
I welcome you to join me.
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