You know you are a nerd when you thrive off of the local library's bi-annual booksale and the one gift you want for Christmas this year is a bookshelf (perhaps not as nerdy as my desire for years to have an overhead projector... but that is for another time). You know you are a bigger nerd when your excitement busts through the windows when your mother tells you she was already planning on giving you said bookshelf (even if it is just to clean up your room because there are literally books stacked in every corner... you should see it... I could build a fort!).
A year ago, the high school English department head (yes, the same woman who sparked the infamous political fiasco in the work room from my earlier post) asked me what my favorite part about reading was. At that point, I was completely dumfounded... and just plain old dumb. Everyone knows I love to read, but no one has ever asked me why. I made up some bull-crud about how I like to be transported to the author's world and yada yada. Although true, that question has lingered and the answer has matured.
Over the past four months as I have re-entered college and begun to tackle a book list of 50+ masterpieces that every English teacher needs to be well-versed in, I am finding that over and over again, these author's are able to tap into the core of human nature. The ability to reveal such things so eloquently, and the realization that there really "is nothing new under the sun" (thanks Solomon!) is fascinating. The way a slew of words written centuries ago continues to speak to my inner-being makes me chuckle. This is my favorite part about reading.
I found myself literally crying over the death of one of Steinbeck's characters who felt like my own grandfather (with an Irish farmer twist), and yelled at Edith Warton's weak male characters (because her females who were discovering what love is wouldn't do it themselves). This is what makes reading so good. The intricacies and reality of human behavior and emotions are embodied and eternalized in the written word.
Currently I am drudging through one of Shakespeare's lesser known plays, Coriolanus. It is not my favorite, but majestic nonetheless.
Coriolanus is basically this Roman war hero who is a huge a-hole and ends up being a traitor to his people. After he is banished, his lunatic of a mother approaches the men who exiled him, proclaiming that it was wrong to banish a man whose wounds he accumulated for Rome spoke louder than his words against Rome.
The tribune replied:
"I would he had continued to his country
As he began, and not unknit himself
The noble knot he made." (Act 4 scene 2 line 30-32)
Coriolanus was a noble Roman. He was a loyal Roman in regards to his service on the battlefield in protecting his fellow citizens. The people looked upon him with much respect, knowing not his heart. But when he spoke as he did and showed his true feelings to Rome, all loyalty was broken.
Acting upon the love you profess is necessary (oh how I know the hurts of someone who is all talk and no action). What is less talked about in the Church is that you can't just do things without love. Coriolanus is guilty as charged. He desired to unify, build up and fight for Rome, but he loved not the Romans. In fact, his character showed him to be a proud man, unwilling to apologize and humble himself for his wrongs.
What of us? When we use our spiritual gifts, are they backed with love? When we attempt to edify our Church, is love the underlying bedrock? When we feed the poor, do we do it in love, or in pride? If our words left our hearts and went immediately to our tongues without the filter of the mind, what would it say? Would our heart scream of love for others and love for God, or would it proclaim solely love for self?
Are we all a bunch of CoriolANUSes (pun intended), acting in pride and raising ourselves above others? Or are we acting as the image of God, remaining loyal in both heart and deed to the one who created us, and the others he created?
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing" 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, NIV.
This isn't rocket science. It's just a realization I had today. I suppose this is yet another facet of the wonderful call to "integrity" that we are given.
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