Code Blue on the Couch

I love books. I love to read books. I love to write and talk about books. But I’ve done little of either in 2010. The reason is historic upheaval and a history logjam.

I have three windows for reading. The first is Monday morning, when I read books related to my calling as a pastor. I read then books specifically from my pastoral library – books of theology, the Christian life, and practical pastoral application. My second window is early Saturday morning, my day off. I ‘sleep in’ but still get up early, and with a cup of coffee have the freedom to read whatever I want. The third is at night when I go to bed. All three windows have been hard to keep open in 2010.

As friends and readers of this blog know, 2010 has been a year of historic upheaval for my family and me. We left a city and church which had been a stable part of our lives for 25 years. We came to a new city and a new church, a transition which has shattered routine and proved as exhausting as exhilarating. Routine crumbles under such upheaval. Windows close. Books have been started, but the time to complete them has been strained.

But 2010 has ‘historic’ in another sense of the word. I have chosen for my two ‘non-pastoral’ slots (though, as most pastors find, ALL reading has pastoral application at some level) to read books of history. And books of history can share two common qualities: they can be dense and they can be long. Density means we read slowly; length means that we read the same book for a long time.

Add to this general weariness from transition and the assumption of a new job, and the pace of reading slows to such a level that were it a heartbeat they’d be calling in the code team. “Code Blue on the living room couch. Stat.” But, no, I’m still alive. Still breathing. Just slow.

Every available Saturday morning, I’ve had a date with Susan Wise Bauer’s The History of the Ancient World. And every night when I go to bed, I’ve been hanging out with Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century.

Bauer and I have been doing quite well together. I began reading the day after Christmas, and this morning, completed the 777th and last page. (Glacial to some of you, I know.)

Tuchman and I have been having a harder time of it. After long days, and getting to bed much later than I should, I’m lucky if I tuck three or four of the 700 pages under my belt before I fall asleep with a three pound book on my chest.

Both have created a logjam of, well, literary proportions. So many books have backed up, so many recommended, gifted, purchased, sitting, waiting patiently for their turn.

I am nearing the end of A Distant Mirror and this morning finished The Ancient World. The Saturday window is now open and the routine has returned. The problem is this: one of the books patiently waiting in line is Bauer’s The History of the Medieval World. The backlog may only grow greater.

How can I leave Rome on the brink of destruction with a newly ‘converted’ emperor?