The world of information is getting too big for me. It always has been. Except when I was in elementary school. I was like a sponge there and felt particular pleasure in being able to read. All through school I was in my element untiI after my second year of college when I got married. Looking back, I have thought at times I might have become a perpetual full time student instead, but I'd have missed too much. Since my husband's military career kept us moving around we didn't settle down long enough for me to further my formal education. So, I just took up reading helter-skelter.
Now-a-days I find it interesting to keep up with the news. I read two good newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and The Christian Science Monitor. I also get the Sunday edition of a local paper. I watch a cross-section of news broadcasts on TV as well as the Opinion segments of all. But I maintain a healthy degree of skepticism, knowing as I discovered long ago, you can't believe everything you read or hear.
I haven't taken a word of advice I once heard, "When picking up a newspaper, read only the comics. They're the only pages that make any sense." I do read the comics, but if I don't read the rest from first to last pages, I try to catch what seems most important. Also, I try to read books by some of the best authors, past and present. But I simply can't keep up with all the reading I plan to do or want to do. I either get distracted in the daytime or save my reading for bedtime. You can guess how that goes.
Being well informed, well read, is a noble ambition, I think. It can spur noble actions and prayer. But sometimes I feel like I did when, as a second-grader on the school bus, I asked Esther, a senior in high school, if I could look at her books. Opening a thick book with no pictures, I was stunned. Do you mean I'll have to read all this when I get to high school?" She laughed and answered, "Yes, and Joycie, it won't be easy!" She was right, and even she didn't know the half of it!
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