5 at a time

I like to read, I like reading Stephen King, Dean Kuntz (only the Odd Thomas stuff) books on the catholic Faith, general spiritual books and as of late political books. The last in the list is new to me, I never read them until last year prior to the election, now I’m hooked.

It was the same way when I started out reading, all through school I hated to read, than one day I read “Catcher in the Rye” and I have never stopped reading, went from J.D. Salinger to Stephen King and on… One of the many strange facts about me is I like to read 4 or 5 books at one time, I’ll have a Stephen King book going, a book by Kuntz maybe a book by Fulton J. Sheen and Wayne Dyer all at the same time along with a few magazines and papers. I love the ability to change directions, to find something that fits my needs at the time. Sometimes the character development of King is what I need and other times it’s some straight talk by Sheen, but what ever it is, I have it at hand.

This method of reading takes time, some books I have been reading for over one year, others last only a few weeks, all depends on my over all needs and the ease of reading. For example I have been reading “An introduction to the Devout life” by St. Francis de Sales for well over a year, i think it’s going on 2 years. And in that same time I have read several King and Kuntz books.

Why such a difference in time, why one book takes me 2 weeks and another 2 years, well it’s not size, Kings are 500 or more pages and The Devout life is just over 200. The disparity in time is due to the depth of reading. When it comes to King, as much as I love his writing and think he is an amazing story teller, in truth the depth is only so deep, St. Francis de Sales on the other hand offers fewer words and, well his story telling is not his strong point, but the depth of each word can make an ocean seem as a kiddy pool. It’s all about processing time and how much my mind can take, and my need at the time of reading. I have devoured faith books as fast if not faster than a King book. It’s all timing and need…

Our faith life is much the same, there should be more than one aspect of our faith life, just as I like to read King and Sheen, two very different styles of writing. King, more a character development, more in to the need to set it all up. King can take one hundred pages to set up an event that only takes ten pages. Some would say over kill, others, like me, would say nope not at all, with in those one hundred pages are the souls of his characters the very essence of there beings. On the other hand, Sheen has the ability to take complex concepts and turn them in to, almost, sill ideas. He has the ability to use the absurd to relay the truths of the faith. It is the multi-faceted aspect of reading 5 books at the same time that invigorates my mind, and it is this same multi-dimensionalness of  faith that invigorates my soul. To challenge my soul to think and love and live in 4 or 5 different ways, all at the same time. To offer up the heart aches and the joys of life all while harvesting the wheat of passion that was sown the year before. To live in the light of Christ and still choose the path, that often times delivers me in to that darkness of lies. To turn the page of defeat in to a page of victory to live out my life in the fullness of the truth as I discover the deeper meaning of my relationship to my God.

Yep, my faith is live a Stephen King book mixed with a little Kuntz and a dash of Sheen. Each offering me a new way to see the light of Christ. A light that will help me to keep on reading my soul…

Paul