Carl Sagan on Books

 

A good, dear friend of mine, who just happens to be a teacher, posted this wonderful quote from Carl Sagan regarding the gift of books.  My friend mused that he though it might be a good idea to blow this picture up and post it as a large poster inside his classroom (A mighty fine idea, if you ask me)

I too, thought it was a wonderful quote, however, I was struck with something perhaps unintended by the author, a well-known agnostic.

Let's break it down, shall we?

 “A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called "leaves") imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. 

Indeed! Especially the ones in Arabic. (A little linguistics humor)

One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. 

Whoa! This got my attention. I immediately thought of the Bible and God's word and how it has been handed down and endured over hundreds of years. This thought then brilliantly teed up the next sentence of his which drove the message home to me.

Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. 

AMEN! The author (Jesus Christ) is indeed speaking, clearly and silently inside my head (but not so quietly in my heart) and it is indeed DIRECTLY to me (and hopefully to you too!) When we read the Word of God, we draw closer to his love and grace. We are enriched by his Holy Spirit and moved to live in a way that pleases Him.

Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.” 

Keeping things framed in terms of the Bible and the word of God, it is through His written word that He has reached "citizens of distant epochs", "binding them together" and although we "who never knew one another" perhaps personally, we do know one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. We are the Church, brought together divinely by an "assemblage of flat, flexible parts, imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles, brought to us by people who are dead, thousands of years ago" with a whole bunch of the Holy Spirit thrown in for good measure. ;0)

Sagan ends with the thought "Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.” 

 

I would respectfully disagree with Mr. Sagan and say that it is Jesus Christ who is working the magic. The humans are just instruments in which He does His will.  

The real magic is that He can use a self-proclaimed agnostic such as Carl Sagan to illustrate just how wondrous and precious his Holy Word is to all of us.

 =BM=