A Summer Suggestion

An important discipline in the life of the Spirit is spiritual reading. Through spiritual reading we have some say over what enters our minds. Each day our society bombards us with a myriad of images and sounds…We simply cannot go far without being engulfed by words and images forcibly intruding themselves into our minds. But do we want our mind to become the garbage can of the world? Do we want our mind to be filled with things that confuse us…depress us…repulse us? Do we want to let others decide what enters our mind and determines our thoughts and feelings?

Clearly, we do not, but it requires real discipline to let God and not the world be the Lord of our mind…Our thoughts and feelings would be deeply affected if we were always to carry with us book that puts our minds again and again in the direction we want to go. There are so many good books about the lives of holy men and women, about remarkable examples of peace-making, about communities that bring life to the poor and the oppressed, and the spiritual life itself. Even if we were to read such a book for only fifteen minutes a day, we would find our mind becoming less of a garbage can and more of a vase filled with good thoughts.    

Henri Nouwen, Here and Now pp. 70-71