three quotes

My good friend Karen-who-lives-in-America sent me this ever-so-true quote (I love the little snippet inspirations she sends me – but I do wish she would start her own blog so I could track the details of her life too!)

“Book browsing is a meditative art. Every woman should have three well-paved avenues for page-turning adventures; a proper bookstore stocked by bibliophiles, a choice second-hand haunt, and a civilised lending library. Books are as essential as breathing. In my experience, when going down for the third time, it was often word-to-word resuscitation that saved the day.” ~ taken from Sarah Ban Breathnach’s “Simple Abundance”

 

And on the same day (that would be yesterday) I read this in The Endless Steppe:

“There, in that muddy village, was a great institution. Not physically to be sure, but in every other way imaginable. It was a small log cabin, immaculately attended to with loving care; it was well lighted with oil lamps and it was warm. But best of all, it contained a small but amazing collection from the world’s best literature, truly amazing considering the time, the place and its size…….It was in that log cabin that I escaped from Siberia….It was there that I learned to line up patiently for my turn to sit at a table and read, to wait – sometimes months – for a book. It was there that I learned that reading was not only a great delight, but a privilege.”

That got me to thinking. I had agreed with the first quote. Wholeheartedly.

But the second one, which I also admired, seemed to disagree. 

Essential or a privilege? They are tied by the common thread of the importance of great literature in everyday life and in hardship.
The first assumes a wealthy existence. The second, poverty.

And that got me thinking even more.
I’m in the first category. This past month has seen new books arriving on our doorstep every week. The last of my purchases for the year arrived this morning. I am privileged, I am delighted, I am revived, I am breathing.

But I am also aware.
Two of the books have grabbed me like no others.
“Material World” and its sequel, “Women in the Material World“.
In the first one, families from all around the globe are photographed with all their worldly possessions. The contrasts are stark. Obscene. Before the second book was completed the women had the opportunity to see the first one and to comment, to respond, to speak out.

Hanke Cakoni from Albania observed, “I would say to some of these women, “Watch what I could do if I had what you have in your life! But the possibility was never given to me to have the kind of life you are living.”"This makes me ask * what can I do with what I have been given?*
It makes me want to provide everyone-in-the-whole-wide-world with access to great literature.
“But they need food more than books”, some might say. They need fresh water and medical care and shelter.
Yes, and no.
Esther Hautzig was starving out in Siberia. Books made her life bearable.

If there could be a wonderful library in the depths of Siberia during World War II, what’s stopping us doing *something* today?