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Who Gets to Say?

It is National Book Banned Week!


Imagine that . . .or, don't imagine. That is the desired effect of banning books from readers like you and me and your kids and mine. No reader, whatever the age, should be deprived of any author toiling for hours, days, weeks, months and years to capture our imagination with concepts that begin in their own. Nothing could be purer or simpler, until somebody mucks it up. WHO gets to say? We know the answer to that rhetorical question: "Mind your own beeswax", as my grandson used to say to his meddling sisters.


There is no joy in banning books, but we can celebrate the love of books by going into our favorite bookstore and library to pick up a book that seems to have been waiting just for us. Ordering online is okay, too, but it is nothing like supporting your local bookseller and library. Just imagine where we would be without them?


In the long winters in Iceland a reading tradition begins on Christmas Eve known as"Jolabokaflod". Unpronounceable, but translated it means: Christmas Book Flood.


This unique and cherished tradition involves giving and receiving new books, then sitting by the fire with loved ones sharing in that simple joy of reading a book. Dating way back to oral storytellers in the 9th century, then much later in the 1700's when the first public library was established when schools were scarce, Icelanders read to self-educate. During WW II the tradition officially began.


Iceland boasts a nearly 100 percent literacy rate. Here are some fun facts taken from the site Arctic Adventures:*


  • Iceland publishes more books per capita than any other country: 1 in 10 Icelanders will publish a book in their lifetime!

  • Icelanders read an average of 2.3 books per month

  • Youth frequently read in languages other than Icelandic

  • A vast majority (76%) believe that it is essential for Icelandic literature to have public support and funding (italics mine)


Compare and Contrast with US:


Story and Song Center for Arts and Culture: https://storyandsongarts.org/
Story and Song Center for Arts and Culture: https://storyandsongarts.org/




 
 
 

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© 2023 by Marie Laure

​Six Stages of Pilgrimage:

  • The Call:

  • The opening clarion of any spiritual journey. Often in the form of a feeling or some vague yearning, a fundamental human desire: finding meaning in an overscheduled world somehow requires leaving behind our daily obligations. Sameness is the enemy of spirituality.

  • The Separation:

  • Pilgrimage, by its very nature, undoes certainty. It rejects the safe and familiar. It asserts that one is freer when one frees oneself from daily obligations of family, work, and community, but also the obligations of science, reason, and technology.

  • The Journey:

  • The backbone of a sacred journey is the pain and sacrifice of the journey itself.  This personal sacrifice enhances the experience; it also elevates the sense of community one develops along the way.

  • The Contemplation:

  • Some pilgrimages go the direct route, right to the center of the holy of holies, directly to the heart of the matter. Others take a more indirect route, circling around the outside of the sacred place, transforming the physical journey into a spiritual path of contemplation like walking a labyrinth.

  • The Encounter:

  • After all the toil and trouble, after all the sunburn and swelling and blisters, after all the anticipation and expectation comes the approach, the sighting. The encounter is the climax of the journey, the moment when the traveler attempts to slide through a thin veil where humans live in concert with the Creator.

  • The Completion and Return:

  • At the culmination of the journey, the pilgrim returns home only to discover that meaning they sought lies in the familiar of one's own world. "Seeing the place for the first time . . ."

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