BitterSweetLife

Spring break is just around the corner and I need it badly.

I think I may have just hit the wall I alluded to earlier this semester. About halfway through the required stack, my reading life is about to go off the hook. I’m already doing preliminary assessments for the days ahead. A Break has specialized dietary requirements where literature is concerned. I’m not sure it’s the proper environment for the weighty classics on my docket, say The Brothers Karamazov or Augustine’s Confessions. I’m sizing up several titles which will provide me with substance and variety in juicy chunks—the kind I can handle in between NCAA games. At this juncture, the lineup is as follows:

The Writing Life, Annie Dillard
Subversive Spirituality, Eugene Peterson
Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, Colin Duriez

The beauty of this blend is that each title can be imbibed incrementally, like bright-toned Costa Rican coffee. I’ve already started dabbling, actually. I read several Subversive essays and the first chapter of Dillard’s book without even noticing. Tolkien & Lewis may demand a more measured approach, but the subject matter will generate the necessary momentum, a sort of continuous motion machine.

This fanciful mixture of theology, history and authorial musing has the essential Spring Break quality of smoke-free flammability. Spontaneous combustion is likely, and these volumes will burn cleanly. If I feel the urge, I’ll throw down an entire book without stopping, and do it guiltlessly. This is a fundamentally different from, say, mid-semester binge reading, as in the case of P.D. James’ Death of an Expert Witness, which I ripped through last week in a compulsive fit. But that's behind me now.

Life-saving medication is just around the bend.