The other day it was quiet in my family room.  This, of course, surprised me because by daughter, Mallory had a friend from Ravenswood over for a couple days.  Her name is Alisa.  You will never guess what they were doing.  Was it watching T.V.?  No.  Was it playing on the computer?  No.  Was it sleeping? No.  Give up?  It was reading!  These two girls were engrossed in consuming the printed word in a book.  And that got me to thinking.  Once again, what my teacher told me in elementary school.  "Reading is the most important subject of all."

When I was just a child at the Grant Elementary School in Oskalose, Iowa, I was told that reading was the most important subject.  Why, I asked?  Because the teacher said, "Every other subject is based on how well one can read."  I must confess at first I did not enjoy reading.  There seemed to be so many other wonderful things to do besides that.  Besides, was not reading just to improve my vocabulary?  I thought as long as I knew the words in a book, wasn't that enough?  However, I eventually came to understand the magic and the wonder of reading and enjoyed through the years some of the greatest books ever written.  Some of my favorites were Huckleberry Finn, Moby Dick, Great Expectations, Faust, Madame Bovary, etc.  However, I am beginning to realize that the greatest book ever written and compiled is the Bible, God's inspired, perfect and divine word.

The month of August is all that remains of this quickly advancing summer.  Soon school, band, football and all school activities will begin.  Why not take advantage of this last month of summer to catch up on some fine reading and especially the book that transforms and guides our lives, the BIBLE.  Check out what others have said...

• We are what we read - Anonymous
• Leaders are readers and readers are leaders
• Can you imagine, Paul has been to heaven and back.  He wrote most of the New Testament.  He has seen the Lord, and yet he wants books. -Charles Spurgeon
• [Send] a warmer cap, a candle, a piece of cloth to patch my leggings...But above all, I beseech and entreat your clemancy to be urgent with the Procureur that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may spend time with that in study.-William Tyndale, during his final imprisonment.
• An ordinary man...surrounds himself with two thousand books... and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy.-Augustine Birrell, English politician and many letters
• Reading aloud is one of the best kept secrets of good parenting.-Barbara Bush
• Read, read, read!  Use the Bible as home base, but vary your diet.  I usually have several books going at once, tucked around here and there for easy access.-Ruth Bell Graham
• Read to refill the wells of imagination.-Harold J. Ockenga, who took a suitcase full of books on his honeymoon.
• Read, not to contradict or confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.  Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.-Francis Bacon

                                                                                                         -Ken