“I was amazed that some words on a page could change your life.” –Testimony of a woman in rehab last Monday night.  She had been in and out of jail more times than she could count, and in prison three times.  These days, she is a solid Christian woman with a strong testimony and a peace that passes understanding.

“I felt I had jewels in my mouth.”  –Frank McCourt, writing about his youth in Belfast.  When a teacher introduced the teenager to Shakespeare, a new world opened for him.  The movie “Angela’s Ashes,” based on McCourt’s book of the same name, showed him lying in the bathtub reading Shakespeare out loud.

In the last week, I have read five books.  Hey, I’m retired and some weeks the calendar is blessedly empty.  Those are great days for grabbing a book and disappearing into another world.

What’s funny about reading all those books last week–my wife thinks it’s more than a little bizarre–is that I read them all at the same time.  Which is to say, I would read one for an hour, then switch to another.  Some nights my bedtime reading was two of the books.  Friends ask if I mix up the story lines.  The answer is that about two sentences into the reading and I’m back in the world created by that author.

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