Books by Dead Guys

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post. Several people asked me last week why I've been slacking so I figured I'm (over)due. If you've been checking back regularly looking for a new post, well...Sorry, Mom.

What do you say when it's the end of January and your last post was "Merry Christmas"? It's too late for "...and Happy New Year" (since the year's already 5% over). The temptation is to fill in some blanks and try to explain my mysterious absence from the blogosphere. But I will not.

In a couple of weeks, we're heading out as a family on vacation, so I figured I should stock up on some reading for the week. I went into the book store with one criteria: the author had to be dead. When the store owner asked if he could help me find something, I told him my criteria and he seemed a bit surprised. In fact, he began pointing me to recently published title that was part of a series on ancient spiritual practices. I pointed out that dead guys generally don't have recently published titles.

And he kept showing me 'good books' by people who could still fog up glass. Finally, I said, "Look, I'm serious. If the author isn't toes up, I don't want to buy the book."

See, I've read many good books. I've just felt lately that, if a book was published decades ago by an author who won't be invited to a conference to talk about it, and if that book is still in print then it must be worth the read. So much of what is written today is written to fulfill contractual obligations on book deals. And, to be fair, there is generally at least some good stuff in any book. However, much of that is also very time-sensitive. It is written in a way that reflects our culture today.

However, I've felt the sense lately that I will grow more as I grab hold of timeless truths. Truths that don't depend on my understanding of a particular time and place. Of course, as a follower of Jesus, I happen to subscribe to the philosophy that the Bible is the ultimate litmus test of truth and even books written decades or centuries ago still fall under that. But I'm banking on the fact that there will be a greater proportion of timelessness in a book that has stood the test of time. I'll let you know after my vacation how the dead authors fared.