Just One Book Meme

Diane tagged me for a meme last week that turned out to be a little bit challenging. Here are the rules:

Books are scarce in the world. They are illegal in some provinces. They are not easily replaced, if not impossible to replace if lost in many if not most circumstances. If you can replace a book or buy one it is usually through the black market at astronomical costs that you cannot afford. Yet you have been able to maintain one of the best collections in the world. If your entire library was about to burn up (think of the firefighters in Fahrenheit 451 invading your home) and you could only have one* book to take with you other than the Bible, what would that be and why?

Simple Rules: Answer the question. Offer one quote that resonates with you. Tag five people whose response is of genuine interest to you and inform him or her that they have been tagged. Cheers!*And it cannot be an entire series of something, that’s cheating.

I have had to think hard about this. I love books. Not just reading them, but having them. I have often said that once a book comes into my house, it rarely leaves. That is true of all kinds of books, textbooks, fiction and nonfiction, even silly paperbacks somehow find their way to a bookshelf and just kind of move in for the long haul. You just never know when you might have a long night when you need to read some trash! So to think of only being able to save one just boggles my mind! My first thought was my Book of Common Prayer, the one I was given for ordination, the one inscribed by the Bishop and all...but the more I thought about it, that wasn't it. Much as I love it, and the Bishop's thoughts are dear to me, there is a church full of BCP's I can pray from. When it came down to it, what I finally chose was my copy of Dag Hammerskjold's Marking's. It was not the first book I owned. That honor belongs to a book called Dancing Ballet that was given to me for Christmas in about my tenth year. Markings was, however, the first book I bought myself. I must have been sixteen or so. It is a hardcover and I spent a LOT on it! As I look back through it contains not only Hammerskjold's words but mine. For I dared to write in this book, to have a dialogue with myself and the author in the margins. And that is why I'd have to keep it. It is part of me, my younger self, who I was as I discovered the larger world of ideas in a very formative and important time in my life.

The Quote: The “mystical experience.” Always here and now – in that freedom which is one with distance, in that stillness which is born of silence. But – this is a freedom in the midst of action, a stillness in the midst of other human beings. The mystery is a constant reality to him who, in this world, is free from self-concern, a reality that grows peaceful and mature before the receptive attention of assent. In our era, the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action.”

Here are the people I tag for interesting answers:
Tandaina
Kathryn
Eliza
MaryBeth
Imingrace