Spiritual Dust

After finishing a short biography of Mark Twain I'd found at the library - a biography which I enjoyed - I began a collection of essays I'd found on the new books shelf. The essays were written by a mother/daughter team who've written several such books previously.

The blurbs on the back described the books the two have written as "warm and engaging," having "entertaining, down-to-earth narration," and offering "guaranteed laughs."

I found some of the pieces amusing, yes. But the more I read, the more I was troubled.

The essays seemed to be just more of what passes for clever and insightful in our superficial culture, but really is shallow and morally deficient.

I had the image of Satan using this book and its ilk to sift spiritual dust into our souls to clog them. People might argue that it's just meant to be a light book, not great literature. But that's how Satan works. Give us "harmless" entertainment that really just poisons us. We see that in books like this - or in popular television shows, movies, songs, etc. Beneath the seeming innocuous surface there are messages and ideas that gradually blind us to what is true, and good, and beautiful.

While mulling my reactions to this book I had the great pleasure of going to a local G.K. Chesterton Society meeting where they were reading aloud essays from Tremendous Trifles. The contrast could not have been more stark. We laughed, discussed, made connections.

I came away from that meeting enriched and inspired. My soul was nourished.

We need more such enriching material, and less of the shallow and morally deficient.

Pax et bonum