Thoughts about the Power of Reading
by – Thomas Shepherd, D.Min.
Books are more than paper and printer’s ink, even more than keystrokes on a computer monitor.
Books carry you at the speed of light to the far edges of human thought.
Open a book and you are diving for pearls in the azure Pacific; open another and you’re bouncing through New York traffic in a Yellow Cab.
Books give you sounds and scents of lands far away…
Through the magic of books, you hear the long-dead voices of Socrates, St. Augustine, Shakespeare and Shelly. You climb into their minds and see the world through their eyes.
Books entertain, teach and arouse us.
It was a book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, that acquainted the world with the horrors of slavery. So powerful was her influence that, upon meeting the author for the first time, Abraham Lincoln said, "So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"
Books challenge and inform us. When you read, there is no corner of the Universe too remote for your mind to reach. Stretch yourself… listen to the wisdom of the ages… match wits with the great thinkers of humanity… laugh with the clowns and cry with the victims and cheer for the heroes. But read, read, read—all your life. Read, and nothing will be closed you. Open a book, and the world falls into your hands.
