Second Lenten Study

I'm constantly picking up books, reading a few pages or even a chapter, then leaving them - unfinished - for weeks or months on end. (Which is why I prefer buying books rather than borrowing them from the library...)

Sometimes I borrow a library book, wondering if I should buy it. Would I read it through?  Would I read it a second time? Or would it sit on my bedside table for months?

One book that I started reading recently is An Altar in the World. I had come across quotes from it in different places.  

Maybe I should try reading it before buying it, I thought. Maybe there is a copy in the public library...

Fortunately, there was. I'm enjoying this book more than I enjoyed another by the same author - Learning to Walk in the Dark. I purchased that book and read it very slowly. Knowing I have to return this one in several weeks is adding a sense of urgency, so I read some every day. An Altar in the World has become my second Lenten book, for thought and reflection...

Here is a passage that jumped out at me, perhaps because my mother's nursing home is part of my daily life: Deep suffering makes theologians of us all. The questions people ask about God in Sunday school rarely compare with the questions we ask while we are in the hospital. This goes for those stuck in the waiting room as well as for those in actual beds... To spend one night in real pain is to discover depths of reality that are roped off while everything is going fine...