MISPLACING RESOURCES
When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.
– 1 Timothy 4:13
In almost a year of learning Portuguese I’m finally coming around to needing some of the books I moved from my old library. I’m in the middle of a student’s paper on the relationship between regeneration and the mind, and I immediately thought of a passage from Christopher Stead’s Philosophy in Christian Antiquity.
Like Samson, waking up the third time to Delilah’s distress, I was prompted as I’d done hundreds of times in America to go reach for the book and find the relevant passage. Only, I went to my modest library in Brazil to discover I had already forgotten that I didn’t move Stead here.
Most people, not even fellow theologians, have probably heard of Stead (rhymes with reed) or ever cared about this book, but it is one of the best analyses in English I’ve come across on the development of philosophical theology in the pivotal 4th and 5th centuries. In one chapter he ponders some of the moves our orthodox forefathers made to attempt to explain how Jesus was both fully divine and fully human, complete with a human soul, mind, and will. And such things venture into our own interplay of Spirit, soul, mind, and will.
That’s why this particular paper made me think of Stead. But sadly, unlike the other times I’ve been prompted to consult him, I won’t remember for sure what he wrote because I don’t have the book with me anymore.
Even worse, I don’t know what happened to that particular book. It could be in a storage bin in rural Missouri. It could be in a pastor’s library in the northern plains of the United States. It could be collecting dust at a Goodwill Store in Jamestown, North Dakota.
Books are heavy and hard to move, so I got rid of most of my library in order to become a missionary. I focused on moving primary sources and secondary sources that I thought would make for likely textbooks. I had to ditch the rest.
My pastor’s study in South Dakota contained hundreds of books arranged mostly by theological topic. At any moment I could find what I was looking for. Today, I stared for minutes at my three little shelves, desperately hoping to find a book that simply wasn’t there.
I never before could connect with the verse above, written by Paul the itinerant missionary, who likely went from city to city traveling light. I wonder what parchments and scrolls Paul left behind and thought to reach for at the right moment, only to remember that he didn’t have them with him. Perhaps it was a consolation that the Holy Spirit inspired some of his writings. I’ll have to settle for fuzzy memories and Google.
When I’m among North American Christians here I tell them about their abundance of riches when compared to those of the majority world. Sometimes people shake their heads and nod with me. But the most recent time I shared this sentiment and mentioned how I couldn’t even give my books away, my audience corrected me. They didn’t come out and say it directly, but they pretty much presumed that no one would value my books like I would. My books just wouldn’t be worth anything to others, especially when you can pay a monthly fee to subscribe to a sort of streaming service of Christian books through Logos or what have you. In light of such convenience, who would ever want to be weighed down with my underlined, dusty, old volumes?
I suppose time marches on. Perhaps by moving I did my own kids a favor by shedding hundreds of books no one would ever want again. But today I wanted one of them, reached for it, and realized it wasn’t there.
The work here is worth the investment, but sometimes it’s okay to stop, ponder, and lament just a little about what once was. My kids sometimes do this with food, friends, and school. For me I suppose it’s books.
Paul didn’t quit because he found himself separated from the familiar. He reckoned that the new life Jesus called him to was worth far more than clinging to whatever conveniences and comforts he was accustomed to in his old life, including being around his scrolls and parchments. And, by God’s grace, I reckon the same.
Who knows, as my Portuguese skills improve I might just rebuild my library with new books. After all, one of the biggest book fairs in all of South America comes to our city every November. Perhaps I’ll arrive there this year with a list in hand. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find someone else’s unwanted copy of Christopher Stead.