📝 From the Pastor’s Desk

A Year of Rediscovering the Joy of Reading

Dear Holy Covenant,

I can’t remember reading a single book from front to cover during high school, only Cliff Notes so I could pass a couple of tests and turn in some papers. That is until my senior year when my high school sweetheart decided to drag me off to see The Lord of the Rings at the movies. And I wasn’t having any of it until we got there. Until the lights were dimmed, and my pouting fit finally dissolved into the wonder of this new world that was called Middle Earth. I was absolutely enthralled by it, so much so that I ran to the used bookstore in town to read the next two novels and stood in line for every LOTR movie on opening night thereafter.

This series helped me discover both the power and joy of reading. After high school as a freshman in college read Martin Luther King Jr.’s autobiography (which I’ll be sharing about next month in January) and Alex Haley’s Malcolm X. During a difficult season in my life, I poured over several self-help books before finding the spiritual section at Barnes and Noble and consuming the Conversations with God series, Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, and other spiritual texts like A Course in Miracles.

It was around that time I found my way to the Unity Church, and I can’t even begin to recall the number of spiritual books I’ve read since…all I can say is it’s a lot…