Dear Baba

Dear Baba; I just got a catalog in the mail with hundreds of Orthodox books.  How do I go about picking which books I should get?  Do you have any books that are staples in your library?

My dear avid reader friend, I’m so glad you have stopped by.  There is nothing quite like reading a book or discussing one while sipping a nice hot cup of tea.  And it so happens we can talk about books while we enjoy this fresh pot of tea I’ve just brewed up.

I can only begin to give you some very basics when it comes to books.  As you can see, we have two millennia worth of writings and that is more than anyone can begin to read in a lifetime.  That is the beauty of Orthodoxy you know – there is always more and it always leads you into the depths and closer to God.  So I suppose since I like analogies so much, we’ll use ‘diving into the depths’ for our discussion.  But there is one major exception where this analogy fails and that is as we go deeper, the light does not fade as it does for the SCUBA diver but grows brighter and stronger.

If you have earned your SCUBA certification, you know full well the instructors do not throw you into the ocean to do a deep dive on your first outing.  First you work in a pool – a catechumenate if you will.  And then you may snorkel or do very shallow and very short dives.  There is much to learn before you go into the depths.  Dive too quickly and without experience and you could develop all sorts of painful and horrid conditions.  The other critical thing is to not dive alone.  It is very important with the books you read about the faith that you lean on your spiritual father as a guide and to help make sure you are understanding it correctly and in truth, that you are reading books suitable for your level of spiritual development.

Please use the vast libraries of writings to sustain you as you grow closer to God.  But at the same time I must admonish you to be careful that you do not begin to use ‘book smarts’ as a way to make others stumble or as a substitute for prayer, fasting, alms giving and repentance.   I can attest to being blessed to know people who were not particularly well read but had the most gentle, deep and abiding faith.  I’m sure we all know people like this who walked every step of their lives with Christ.  Look at the lives of some of the saints – like St. Euphrosynos the simple cook on Mt. Athos.

It is important to read edifying books and make sure you understand the basics of our faith.  All too often people feel this is beneath them and they jump into lofty spiritual readings well before they are ready.  My dear, they simply choke on it and from that grow all sorts of bad fruits.   We all need to read and re-read the basics throughout our lives.  There are many books that can be read as literature but there are equally many that need to be studied and absorbed over time.  Even the biography of Fr. Arseny, while it can be read as literature, needs time to be absorbed into our lives

I like the rainbow series by Fr. Thomas Hopko.  Does your family have a set, my dear?  It is a fabulous reference as is These Truths We Hold.  Fr. Alexander Schmemann books are all incredible and of course Metropolitan Kallistos Ware.  My dear, I could go on and on about all those books in that catalog you received. 

And honestly, don’t let the titles fool you.  Beginning to Pray, for example, by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom is one very challenging book.  It isn’t challenging in its reading level, vocabulary or length.  In fact, it is a very comfortable read in terms of the language.  But it is a challenge in terms of the message because it makes us really examine our motivations in prayer, our relationship with God and our focus during our time on earth.  It is a call to action.  Would you be ready to answer that call and truly change your life?  Or worse yet, dismiss it while you look for the Advanced Prayer book in the catalog.

I will confess to you that I have owned a copy of the Ladder of Divine Ascent for YEARS (decades actually but we women don’t like talking about our age).  I felt I was so very ready to be toting that around and reading it at a picnic table over lunch.  I’d read the basics and just knew I was ready to tackle a book so many talked about during Great Lent.  In all these years, I’ve not made it past the first rung “on renouncing the world.”  It is daunting.  I came up out of that diving experience gasping for air and of course blaming the book not my lack of spiritual development.

You know, we live in a time when so much information and knowledge are at our fingertips.  We could and should continuously learn about our faith, the lives of the saints and the history of our church.  There are so many wonderful books out there.  We just need to prioritize our over-scheduled lives to make time for prayer and study.  It is good to dive into the depths.  Come on in, the water’s fine.  But first you need to have another cup of tea and some of this apple pie while we take a look at that catalog you brought along.

With enveloping hugs;
Baba