Reading

Date: 29 December 2007 06:30:01

Rhys commented here on David Crystal's book Language Death, which may be the next book I buy. Given I am sitting on about 10 as-yet unread books, I am not sure I should be looking now: but that has never stopped me before.

I have recently finished reading David Crystal's How Language Works [sub-titled "How babies babble, words change meaning and languages live or die..."]: a fantastic book for an amateur language enthusiast such as myself. Crystal does, in his knowledgeable and humorous ways, cover the working of language from babies' babblings to written language to language structure and through to dialects and multilingualism. I truly enjoyed and relished reading each of the 484 pages.

I will be starting reading Job as part of the Wisdom Books [Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Wisdom and Sirach -- the last two counted among the so-called deuterocanonicals] Navarre Bible text and commentary. I have enjoyed the previous Navarre Bibles I have read: especially for their clear and practical commentaries.

Another text I can recommend his His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Spe Salvi [on Christian Hope]. As with his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, I got great benefit from the second half of the encyclical, where Pope Benedict XVI turned his pen to practical examples on how to live with Christian hope. The theoretical aspects at the beginning, while informative and interesting, I find a bit harder to understand -- it must be my poor brain power. I feel greatly challenged by His Holiness' call to love and hope: and, as I wrote earlier, it is a very practical call. I found this part particularly called to me:

36. ... suffering is a part of our human existence ... Certainly we must do whatever we can to reduce suffering: to avoid as far as possible the suffering of the innocent; to soothe pain; to give assistance in overcoming mental suffering. These are obligations both in justice and in love, and they are included among the fundamental requirements of the Christian life and every truly human life. Great progress has been made in the battle against physical pain; yet the sufferings of the innocent and mental suffering have, if anything, increased in recent decades. Indeed, we must do all we can to overcome suffering, but to banish it from the world altogether is not in our power. This is simply because we are unable to shake off our finitude and because none of us is capable of eliminating the power of evil, of sin which, as we plainly see, is a constant source of suffering. Only God is able to do this: only a God who personally enters history by making himself man and suffering within history. We know that this God exists, and hence that this power to “take away the sin of the world” (Jn 1:29) is present in the world. Through faith in the existence of this power, hope for the world's healing has emerged in history. It is, however, hope—not yet fulfilment; hope that gives us the courage to place ourselves on the side of good even in seemingly hopeless situations, aware that, as far as the external course of history is concerned, the power of sin will continue to be a terrible presence.

37. .. It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.

Pope Benedict then goes on to quote from a letter written by the Vietnamese martyr Paul Le-Bao-Tinh († 1857), which is well-worth reading also.

It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.

Tough words: to me. How hard it is for me to not whinge and complain about suffering [mental in my case] excessively, but to accept suffering and to find meaning and mature through the suffering with Christ. I pray I can put this into action.