Today is my last day of employment with the collegiate ministry for whom I’ve worked forty-eight years. I’ve always tried to make clear that the views and books reviewed in this blog do not reflect the views of that organization. After today, that disclaimer will no longer be necessary.

Understandably, I’ve done a good deal of reflecting on this journey, filled with much gratitude. But I’ve not written until now on the impact of my work on my life as a reader. So I thought this a good space.

On one hand, I’ve always been a reader ever since I learned how to read. But work in this context made me a better reader in several ways. For one, several leaders stressed that we can only give out what we have within us and the importance of reading deeply to replenish the well. So I would use summers, when students were away to sink my teeth into deep books: Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Bonhoeffer and others.

A second influence was working alongside people like the late James Sire, whose book How to Read Slowly really taught me to read critically, to not just let books wash over me. Jim was a voracious reader, who introduced me to new authors, like Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem.

A third influence that shaped me was to work among graduate students and faculty. This taught me not to fear opposing views. This, coupled with the conviction that all truth is God’s truth, taught me to read fearlessly. And I learned to have a greater tolerance for ambiguity as part of the process in inquiry.

Finally, we believed God’s love knows no boundaries which has encouraged me to read the works of people of different ethnicity and national origin. There is so much more to the world than the perspective of this White American! All these influences have, I believe, made me a better reader, for which I’m grateful.

Five Articles Worth Reading

Students are returning to college campuses. Appropriately, Bookriot ran an article this week on “A History of The Campus Novel.” Campuses make a great setting for all sorts of fiction, as this article suggests.

I mentioned how limiting only looking at the world from a Western perspective can be. Polish scholar and essayist Małgorzata Gorczyńska in “A Rolled-up Paper Gun” delineates some of the ways Eastern Europeans read and see the world differently.

Have you ever said, “we live in uncertain times.” Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza makes the case in “We Live in Uncertain Times… But Haven’t We Always?” that this is nothing new. And she proposes, “Let us learn to be comfortable with unknowability. We don’t know what will happen next, and we cannot know.” The illusion of certainty may be our greater enemy.

Mat Messerschmidt considers why the works of Friedrich Nietzsche hold so much sway with many young men and how this reflects our crisis of masculinity in “Over Man.”

Finally, you might enjoy listening to this conversation as “Isabel Wilkerson Looks Back at “The Warmth of Other Sons.” This is part of the New York Times conversations with authors appearing on their “Best of the 21st Century” list.

Quote of the Week

Jorge Luis Borges was born August 24, 1899. He offered this speculation with which many of us would resonate:

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”

Miscellaneous Musings

I wish Elizabeth Peters had written fifty Brother Cadfael’s. I’m on number 16 of 22 and I don’t want the series to end. At least Louise Penny has another Gamache coming out this fall and William Kent Krueger is still turning out books in his Cork O’;Connor series.

I reviewed And There Was Light by Jon Meacham on Abraham Lincoln. I don’t know if Lincoln was elected for his character and convictions, but it was crucial to his leadership. But in posting this, I learned of another book by the same title, an autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran. Although blind at the age of 7, by 17 he became a leader of the French resistance to the Nazis. I ordered a copy, because the person who recommended it was the one who put me onto William Kent Krueger and she considered this in her top five.

Leonard Riggio died this week. He turned Barnes & Noble into a bookselling giant, a threat to many indie booksellers, at least until Amazon came along, and the suddenly were united against a common competitor. The store near us opened during his era and seems to be thriving under the leadership of James Daunt. The Chicago Sun Times obituary offers a good profile of his career.

Well, that’s The Weekly Wrap for this week!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page.