Once I read an autobiography from a very successful teacher who had grown up in a family of rather severe abuse. She chronicled how it was books that provided an escape and a vision of what she might become. In books she caught sight of a world she could aspire to, out of the misery of her own life. While I did not experience anything like the difficulties the teacher described, I do know that books were and are sources for freedom, growth, and even healing for me. In them I found companions more like my lonely self. They took me on adventures to situations and places I had never known. They helped me understand myself and other people. They taught me empathy and engaged my compassion. Through books I came to see other people’s perspective even when I strongly disagreed. The Bible was one of those books, but not the only one. The Bible’s realistic portrayal of human beings, with all their greatness and nobility and all their pettiness and sinful arrogance, taught me so much. Books have opened up the world around me and the world inside me. No wonder I love books! I have a coffee cup which proclaims, “Leave me alone, I’m reading.” So leave some space in your life to read good books and especially “the Good Book”, the Bible. Perhaps it will open you up to the world around you and the world inside you.