BETWEEN TWO CITIES

Books to the ceiling, books to the sky.
My piles of books are a mile high.
How I love them!
How I need them!
I’ll have a long beard by the time I read them.

I am a reader. I have too many books left to read, and more are available to read everyday. The photo above is my favorite bookmark. When I reached 60 years old, I realized that I would not be able to read all the books that I had hoped to read over the years.

I am grateful to have the time to read and that I am compulsive about making the time to read.

Today, I was reading John Baillie’s A Diary of Daily Prayer, Day 21 morning, and included in that daily devotional was a petition to God for reading guidance that can be used as a prayer on its own. So for dedicated readers who want divine help in choosing what to read for profit or recreation, and in being a better steward of his or her time, I offer this Reader’s Prayer for you to copy and paste, which I adapted from Baillie with modification to include internet reading:

A Reader’s Prayer

Leave me not, O gracious God, in such hours as I may today devote to the reading of books, magazines, internet websites, newsletters, and blogs or newspapers. Guide my mind to choose the right books and other written works, having chosen them, to read them in the right way. When I read for profit, grant that all I read may lead me nearer to you. When I read for recreation, grant that what I read may not lead me away from you. Let all my reading so refresh my mind that I may the more eagerly seek after whatsoever things are pure and fair and true.

Adapted from A Diary of Daily Prayer, Day 21, Morning Prayer by John Baillie

Now that I am 71 and I have many books unread, I have added to my prayer the following:

Help me and strengthen me to overcome with wisdom and faith the discouragement of so many books to read with insufficient time remaining to read them, and give me the confidence and peace that I will choose what to read according to your will for me and for your purposes, to used my time wisely, both for profit and for recreation.

So, my Reader’s Prayer, with the senior citizen addition inserted, for you to copy and paste, is as follows:

A Reader’s Prayer

Leave me not, O gracious God, in such hours as I may today devote to the reading of books, magazines, internet websites, newsletters, academic papers, blogs or newspapers. Guide my mind to choose the right books and written works and having chosen them, to read them in the right way. Help me and strengthen me to overcome with wisdom and faith the discouragement of so many books to read with insufficient time remaining to read them, and give me the confidence and peace that I will choose what to read according to your will and for your purposes, and to use my time wisely, both for profit and for recreation. When I read for profit, grant that all I read may lead me nearer to you. When I read for recreation, grant that what I read may not lead me away from you. Let all my reading so refresh my mind that I may the more eagerly seek after whatsoever things are pure and fair and true.

Adapted from A Diary of Daily Prayer, Day 21, Morning Prayer by John Baillie