Reading What? (part two)

This article, "Books Without Batteries: The Negative Impacts of Technology" by Bill Henderson, is something of a plug for his new book, "Book Love." Here Henderson explores the cents and sense of the E-reader debate with regards to the ecological impact this technology promises. (continued from part one)

Some think that the e-reader will save trees. Soon, according to a recent New York Times article, we will possess over 100 million e-readers. What a savings in our forests, right? Wrong.

Here’s what an e-reader is: a battery-operated slab, about a pound, one-half inch think, perhaps with an aluminum border, rubberized back, plastic, metal, silicon, a bit of gold, plus rare metals such as columbite-tantalite (Google it) ripped from the earth, often in war-torn Africa. To make one e-reader requires 33 pounds of minerals, plus 79 gallons of water to refine the minerals and produce the battery and printed writing. The production of other e-reading devices such as cellphones, iPads, and whatever new gizmo will pop up in the years ahead is similar. “The adverse health impacts [on the general public] from making one e-reader are estimated to be 70 times greater than those for making a single book,” says the Times.

Then you figure that the 100million e-readers will be outmoded in short order, to be replaced by 100 million new and improved devices in the years ahead that will likewise be replaced by new models ad infinitum, and you realize an environmental disaster is at hand. We will have lost a chunk of our planet as we lose our minds to the digital juggernaut.

Here’s what it takes to make a book, which, if it is any good, will be shared by many readers and preserved and appreciated in personal, public, and university libraries that survive the gigantic digital book burning: recycled paper, a dash of minerals, and two gallons of water. Batteries not necessary. If trees are harvested, they can be replanted.

I co-edited Book Love – a collection of observations on writing, reading, and the tradition of printed and bound books – for those who still love books. Books are our history and our future. If they survive, we will, too. Books, readers, writers – on this tripod we keep the faith.

Book Love, edited by James Charlton and Bill Henderson is out from Pushcart Press on April 23, the International Day of the Book.



Check out Part 3 in the days ahead for some of my own brief thoughts about this subject.

Reading What?

This article, "Books Without Batteries: The Negative Impacts of Technology" by Bill Henderson, is something of a plug for his new book, "Book Love." I think it's a challenging and heartening perspective on the powers of technology and our response to embrace it, or not.

The resent onslaught of e-readers was announced with a veneer of the best of intentions. The book needed improving, said one maven, who also sells diapers and soup online. An MIT visionary predicted that in five years we will read almost no paper books – just digital devices. The book would become a relic, a collector’s item, the e-experts agreed. And of course with the death of the book, our bookstores and libraries would wither and die.

The e-experts said that in the future all information and literature would be available on the device of the moment (sure to be replaced by the device of the next moment). You may never have to leave the comfort of home or bed. The latest bestseller – indeed, millions of out-of-print books (you didn’t know you needed so many) – could be had at the click of a button. This was billed as an improvement.

Lots of people are making lots of money telling us this is for our own good. Tweeting away, we never stop to think. In fact, we may be losing out ability to think.

In The Shallows: What the Internet Is doing to Our Brains (Norton, 2010), Nicholas Carr notes that after years of digital addiction, his friends can’t read in depth anymore. Their very brains are changing, physically. They are becoming “chronic scatterbrains… even a blog post of more that three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb.”

Carr continues: “For the last five centuries, ever since Gutenberg made reading a popular pursuit, the linear, literary mind has been at the center of art, science, and society. As supple as it is subtle, it’s been the imaginative mind of the Renaissance, the rational mind of the Enlightenment, the inventive mind of the Industrial Revolution, even the subversive mind on Modernism. It may soon be yesterday’s mind.”

Because our brains can no longer think beyond a tweet, we can’t write well. And we can’t read well either. The idea of reading – let alone writing – War and Peace, Bleak house, or Absalom, Absalom! is fading into an impossible dream.

In any case, what serious writer would create exclusively for an e-reader? It’s like farting into the wind. Writers hope, mostly in vain, that their work will endure for a few years or even centuries, in handsome printed and bound volumes. Why bother at all if your words are to be digitized into instantly accessible and disposable battery-dependent gas?



Part 2 soon to come!

Cloudy with a chance of Creativity

Perhaps as a result of my spending so many of my growing up years in Colorado, I've come to expect a routine of sunshine during the day, splotchy rain in the afternoon, and crisp nights.  In the heat of summer, in our 2nd floor apartment in a home built in 1890, I appreciate those crisp nights.

It's a very typically gorgeous climate, and the reason I'm sure so many people continue to flock to this perpetual Valhalla (especially Texans and Californians).  Colorado is the full color "OZ" to the rest of the world's "Kansas" of black and white.  Who wouldn't want to live here?

In a nomadic Air Force family, I've lived several stints away from this glistening paradise.  I've seen worse places, and many would fall into that category of opinion, though to allow their locals a measure of dignity I'll leave titles out of it.  But I've also been to different places.  Places which, for all their perplexity and bewitching power have left an enduring image that the occasional impression will bring to mind.

Specifically, cloudy places.

Places like Aberdeen, Scotland.  Seattle, Washington.  San Francisco, California.  It's true that Colorado can be cloudy too, but thanks to a majority of happy, chipper and sunny days - it just doesn't have the same association for me.  What I find interesting is the way a cloudy day can shape my creative mood.

Maybe it's just me, but watching a fog roll through adds a measure of mystery to the day.  A sprinkle of rain that just wets your nose and shoulders wakes you up.  Staring at a downpour approaching off the coast, sitting with coffee and journal in hand from the grounds-filled air of an indigenous shop is thought provoking.  Why?

Clouds obscure what was previously in full view, and they change the look of things we've seen countless times before.  The lighting is muted.  Colors dull.  Imagination takes over to fill the gaps in visual perception.  I think for me, it's those not knowing experiences that give me the freedom, or even force me to perceive whatever I will.

Thanks to Brianne Nichole Photography!

This morning, the crisp air held my thoughts captive for only a moment as I woke up.  "Maybe it's a little cloudy outside," I thought for an instant before I opened my eyes.  Sure enough - the blue sky is piercing, the birds are singing, and the hot sun was rising over our baked landscape.

Although our next vacation is a little ways off, I think I'm learning to search for those 'gaps' in the meantime.  Who knows what may come of it?

Two Things

This is a bit of a landmark blog for me.  There are two reasons for this.  Neither have much to do with this piece being especially well written, or the fact that I'll have the best stats to gloat over.  With that in mind - I write.

Yesterday, I was officially licensed as a pastor at New Life Church.

There were requirements, yes.  Meetings, yes.  Hard questions to answer, yes.  Easy, no.  It took me about two years to get through it.  I can now legally officiate weddings, and there are tax breaks included that help with the perpetually minuscule salary I'll receive (time to write a book or hit song??), along with a daily schedule that is oftentimes personally produced.  But for me, this is much more than a tax break and a title.  I want it to be.

I'm still discovering what it looks like.  Clearly.  I'm comforted by the repeat recollections of older pastors that affirm my hope: most of us have no idea in the beginning.  But what unites us regardless of tenure is a love for God, and a love of people.  The rest will fall into place along the way.  I'm blessed to be surrounded by the pastoral staff I grew up with; men and women who have been there and can help guide me along the path.

What's more, last week was my last as Director of the School of Worship.

I'm not leaving, no.  The switch came as no surprise to me, since Brad and I had been going through this discussion for months.  It was a combination of things - Brad getting more involved as President, finding the right slot for my talents, and addressing the holes within the program.  Coinciding with my licensing, I'll take on the spiritual formation and pastoring of the students.  I'm honored.

But honestly, in spite of the boldness I may exude, it hasn't been the easiest move.  Most everything about it makes sense, and our new arrangement feels right.  But I'm human.  Change is hard.  Adjustment won't be easy, and it's not supposed to be.  The new arrangement of personnel and my new job could be intimidating.  But I know one thing for sure, something that shapes who I am: I believe God is good regardless of circumstance - and I've chosen to trust him.  That carries me through the turbulent waters of wondering, of future fear.

I'm a pastor; it's what I'm supposed to say right?

Still I'm just as human as the next guy.  That hasn't changed and won't.  I hope to have even more honest conversations with people, searching for the truth and embracing it together.  I hope to bring hope, to encourage life, and belief in a God who takes us right where we are.