by James Woodward
I have spent some time in recent months dealing with the accumulation of over 40 years of books. Some of them I inherited from others. Many have been picked up in second-hand book shops. Others are part of my ongoing adventure in theological learning and education. There are gifts. There are textbooks. Some are new and others decades old. Some I have tried to read but given up in the hope that the time will come to ingest their treasures.
I have no immediate plans to abandon my commitment to learning and reading and teaching but it has felt like a time to simplify and let go of some stuff. And I can tell you it is very liberating!
It is also surprisingly hard work. As each volume enters your hands, you look and think and examine what is in your hands. What next? A decision to for the book to with a stay or go. This is not work for the fainthearted or book lovers! It’s a ruthless business and it calls for firm discipline, a steady will and a bit of courage.
It also was, in part, easy work. Some of these books have not been read for decades had never merited a second visit. They may fill the shelf but this is an expensive way of wallpapering a room! There are books full of pages that perhaps should have remained a sentence. Too many words and too often badly put together. What kind of advice might I need now from books? As I dispatched them to a variety of places I hoped that someone else might find a delight in these volumes that somehow eluded me.
It was also interesting to note what fell out of some of these books. Some were gifts and thank you presents. You must read this was the instruction pencilled into the frontispiece of one from a former mentor and teacher long departed. There were old cards used as bookmarks. Postcards from holidays. Thank you cards. The occasional letter from a grateful family for whom I had conducted a baptism wedding or funeral. I’ve collected all of these in a pile and will take a second and third look when I can find the time!
Of course at the other end of this adventure there were easy decisions to make. These were treasures and keepers. These were books that shaped my life and my thinking and my teaching. They opened my mind and eyes and deepened my horizons of wonder. Some had been pondered over many times. How could I let them go now? These were books that bear the gift of durability as they manage to engage with every new time and place. These volumes deserve their particular place on the shelf.
There were some books that made me puzzle about why it was so hard to hang on to them. They made me recall a person or a location or a particular event. To abandon such a book felt like betraying those memories but clinging to it also felt like a waste of time and energy. No matter how much emotion we assign to a book, it is not a talisman by which the past will return.
Theological education and ministerial formation are being rearranged in ways quite unknown to earlier generations. We do need to let go of what simply does not work. We need to have the courage to change. Some of this is related to a shift in sympathy and allegiance with the Church. Numbers of those regularly attending Christian places of worship have steadily declined in this country and across Europe over many decades. Theological books are not popular. Many specialised bookshops have closed as we resort to Amazon.
Churches have found it hard to recover after the pandemic where everything is and has been rethought. It simply is not good enough for us here at Sarum or anywhere else for that matter, just to reorganise what we have long cherished, hope for minimal fuss and then declare that it is good enough.
The disruption we face is real and urgent but not tragic. It is an opportunity to let go of what cannot return and to use our treasures well. It will call for firm discipline, a steady will and a bit of courage trusting in God’s Providence most of all.
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This post is adapted from the original posted on James’s website.
James Woodward is Principal of Sarum College. View his bio.
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