“La lectura es el viaje de los que no pueden tomar el tren.”

Reading is a journey of those who cannot take the train.

These words were written by an early 20^th Century playwright named Francis de Croisset. They express the magic of transport the human mind can venture by way of the written word.

On the coast of modern-day Lebanon is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world: Biblos. It was there, thousands of years ago, that the reed plant papyrus was made into paper. And from that town came the word “bible”, which literally means book. The Bible is a collection of books venerated for centuries as the very Word of God.

The first book ever printed was the Bible in 1454 by Johannes Guttenberg. Only 48 copies of that original printing exist today.  Their value is nearly priceless since they are rarely sold. If one were sold, it would be worth over 100 million dollars. Ironically, Guttenberg died penniless.

This is a facsimile, an exact copy of the first book printed in North America. It is a book of psalms called the Bay Psalm Book, printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There are only 11 known original copies. One of them was sold at auction last year for over 14 million dollars.

For much of American history, if there was any book in a home, it was the Bible. It was used not only in churches, but it was also the standard textbook in many schools. That is one reason so many writings of people like Abraham Lincoln have a biblical cadence to them. “Four score and seven years ago” is definitely a biblical sounding phrase.

The Bible is the ultimate printed portal to another world, the world of God’s relationship to a chosen people. But all books are doorways to other worlds, which is why they have a venerable quality to them. They look good, they feel good and they even smell good.

Next year’s freshman class will be the first class born in the 21^st Century. They will have no lived experience of anything that happened in the 20^th Century. Their only contact with the past will be technology, either the printed word or ever-expanding digital world.

Books are a technology in their own right. But some say the era of books is over; or that people, especially young people, don’t read books anymore. People have been tripping over themselves predicting the end of books.

On the contrary, a million books were published in the United States last year, as many as half of them self-published. Books are not going to disappear. We human beings are a story-telling species. We have a strong impulse to share our stories with others. Books, in whatever form, play a vital role in the transmission of human thought. And that transmission is essential for the survival of humanity. That is how next year’s freshman will learn about the 20^th Century.

Until the last century, most people required another person to read to them. Today, more and more people are learning to read. Yet, it is a tragedy, if not a disgrace, that there are over 32 million adults in the United States today who cannot read. Of those who can, 21% read below the 5^th grade level and 19% of high-school graduates cannot read. This is not only a weakness, but also a danger for our nation. Those who can read have a moral obligation to teach those that cannot.

Even in this country, there have been times in our history when teaching certain others to read was not only discouraged, it was also illegal. Such laws were shameful.

Next month, a 17 year old girl from Pakistan, Malala Yousulzai, will be given the Nobel Peace Prize. Two years ago, she was shot in the head for advocating the teaching of girls in her homeland. Few things in life are worse than denying others the right to an education. Young Miss Malala has shamed those who would do so.

Two millennia ago, the Roman orator Cicero wrote, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” The same could be said for a school without a library.

There are over 160 million items in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. It is the largest library in the world, with the single historically ironic exception of the British Library in London. It is ironic because 200 years ago, on August 24, 1814, soldiers of the British army burned the Library of Congress.

While we here have only a small fraction of the books in DC or London, we do have increasing access to them through digital technology. One can even access the magnificent manuscripts of the Vatican Library.

St. Benedict, the 6^th Century founder of Western Monasticism, set out a rule for monks and others seeking a full life in the Spirit. He spelled out in detail how monks are to pray and to work. He also went into detail about the importance of reading. A popular saying summarizing his Rule in Latin is “ora et labora”, pray and work. But that isn’t the complete saying. That would be ora et labora et legere- pray, work and read.

It is a saying that parallels with our BK Mission to educate the whole student, Spirit, Mind and Body.

I began this reflection by quoting a playwright. I will conclude by quoting a writer of science fiction. Isaack Yudovich Ozimor, to use his birth name. He wrote to the trustees of a new library built in Troy, Michigan in 1971:

“Congratulations on the library, because it isn’t just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you- and most of all, a gateway to a better and happier and more useful life.”

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