The picture is one of my dad, receiving from the rest of us a massive box of books - the set by Will an Ariel Durant, on the history of the world. Even today, it's a good set, and dad had this odd idea, oh, must've been twelve years ago now - he wanted to read these books. When you're diagnosed with a terminal disease, back-of-the-mind books you've wanted, and BMW Z3 convertibles, have a way of moving forward.
The photo shows him, box on lap, one book in hand, glasses on, a wide smile of surprised pleasure welling up from him. He'd never imagined his little girl would go on a website her college creative writing professor had told her about, Bibliofind, and find a set in good condition, and that the family would order them for him.
He made it about to the Renaissance, if I recall. Not a poor showing given something less than two years' reading and a stack of books so thick a standard Hammermill paper box scarcely contained the whole.
When I opened the book to tuck the photo back in (it was the blessed only disarrangement suffered in a bit of a bashing by the puppy), inside the cover were some sheets of yellow tablet paper. Paging through them, they turned out to be blank.
But the post-it note behind them wasn't.
"If I believe in God, I have difficulty. If I believe in no God, I have more difficulties." --Judah Nodiah.
Count on dad to include the credit.
Today I haven't gone to Church, but this was the top post on my Blogger dashboard. It made me think - I'm so selfish. I worry less about my seeing G-d than about G-d's seeing me.
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| Wikimedia curves |
For more about the world-blind habit of curvatus en se human thinking - ponder the question, "Does a bear poop in the woods?" or its selfish corollary, the one about trees falling when no person is around to hear them ...
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