SUNDAY: Bible Study - 9:00 AM | Worship - 10:00 AM | PM Worship - 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY: Bible Class - 7:00 PM ~ 8110 Signal Hill Road Manassas, Virginia | Office Phone: 703.368.2622

CrazyHorse         The other day a thirty year search ended.  After decades excavating used book shops and spelunking in thrift stores I found a copy of The Story of Crazy Horse by Enid Lamonte Meadowcroft, and illustrated by William Reusswig at Prospero’s in Old Town.  It was part of the Signature Books series by Grosset & Dunlap, and was the first book about which I did a real book report.  It was the first book I couldn’t put down – the first of a long line. It was assigned to me by my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Jordan.  She was a first year teacher.  She was quiet and kind and all us boys were in love with her. She was big on reading to us, which she did at the end of every school day. She would read books that were a little below our grade level, but she would make us think about how they were written. She read Charlotte’s Web, and made us pay attention to alliterations like “garrulous geese,” and how phrases like, “the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep,” are music because they both have five beats.  She didn’t weep when she read of Charlotte’s death, but when she read the last two paragraphs of the book her voice broke and the tears rolled. “These last two paragraphs are perfect,” she said. And they are.

            So when she assigned our first book report I knew it had to be good.  I wanted to do Guadalcanal Diary, by Richard Tregaskis, or Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, by Captain Ted W. Lawson (which was really beyond my comprehension level at the time), but Mike Trimble and Chip Stowasser got to them first, so I grabbed the coolest book left – The Story of Crazy Horse, by Enid Lamonte Meadowcroft.  Honestly, if I had noticed that the book was by a girl I wouldn’t have checked it out – it wouldn’t have been cool (S .E. Hinton, the coolest author of juvenile fiction ever is a girl.)  All I knew then was that from the first line, “It was August – the month which the Indians call the moon when cherries turn black…” I was hooked.

            I don’t have the report anymore (I wish I did), but I remember I got an A, and words of approval from Mrs. Jordan – and I got an itch to know, to love, to understand a text. I come from a family of readers at least three generations back, and I was a reader when I picked up The Story of  Crazy Horse, but Mrs. Jordan had taught us to read more deeply than the narrative arc.  There is the story, yes, then there is how the story is told, and that is as important.  That was the moment, for me, when reading eclipsed television, or cinema as a medium of communication.

            Which is fortunate because God didn’t make a movie or a mini-series, he gave us a book.  More precisely stated - He gave us THE BOOK.  THE BOOK is the place we hear His voice, where we learn His truth, the place we commune with His Son, the place where he hear His promises, the place where we are “thoroughly equipped for every good work” (II Timothy 3.17). Whenever I preach or teach I try to do for you what Mrs. Jordan did for us.

            Because reading THE BOOK must be an act of love.  It cannot be a chore.  If we think of it as a chore, it will not have its full, transformative work. God has made it a book we will love if we open our hearts to it. Jesus is there, and Jesus is everything. Which poet is better than David? Which warrior’s biography surpasses his? Which book contains more wisdom than Proverbs, or more theological depth than Job? Where are there better people to be met than the ones we meet in Bethlehem or Bethany? What other book is so specific about what was, what is, and what will be?

            If you open your heart to The Book you will not need me, or Mrs. Jordan, or a book about Crazy Horse, or a book about Guadalcanal. God, Himself, will draw you in.

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