Long time no blog--now let's hit the books!

I suppose the whole Intelligent Design thing dogged my brain to such an extent that I was incapable of intelligently designing a blog entry for several weeks. So I let the gray matter relax by allowing it to recreate in the less taxing task of reorganizing my library, now that my new bookcases have arrived.

For some time now my library has taken the form of stacks, not in the public library sense of the word, but in the sense of piles—piles in corners, piles under tables, piles in trunks and cartons. So now was the time to un-stack all my wonderful volumes and give them not only breathing room (some have become very musty) but also some sense of organization and dignity.

So up on the shelves they go. What could be easier and quicker?

Not so fast! Am I going to allow the vertical piles to become mere horizontal piles, a heterogeneous olio of randomness? Doing so would make the library little more useful than when it was “stacked.” So how to arrange the volumes? Surely I can’t be expected to put little stickers on the spines with Dewey Decimal System numbers—or Library of Congress designations! And the Soviet system of grouping books by size, while practical for utilization of shelf space, would hardly be useful for my purposes. So let’s just group the books by general subject matter and see what happens.

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It is several days later, and I can report that the literary taxonomy job wasn’t too difficult. The books fell into rather natural categories, including:

*Pure Theology—Bibles, reference, book studies, apologetics, church history, prophecy, devotional.
*Pure Science—biology, ecology, physical sciences, medicine, evolution (is this “pure” science?).
*Science, Creation, ID, and Religion—with books on every side of the issue.
*History and Politics.
*Fiction (a very small section—I prefer “verity”).
*Writing and reference
*Autographed books—several by James R. White; several by my former students.
*Books by favorite authors—Francis Schaeffer, Henry Morris, R. C. Sproul, etc.
*Ramsey High School Yearbooks (43!).
*And, of course, “Miscellaneous” (a surprisingly small category).

Several days later? That job should have taken but a few hours! But who can resist becoming reacquainted with old friends. With some books, it took only seconds or minutes to remind myself of their contents and value, but with a few, a glance and skim didn’t satisfy—I had to dig into whole chapters! Books as diverse in philosophy and content as “Consilience” by E. O. Wilson, “Gaia” by J. E. Lovelock, “Future Grace” by John Piper and “Gleanings From the Scriptures” by A. W. Pink all sucked me in and engaged me for a day or two each. Time flies like an arrow (fruit flies like a banana.)

And so it goes. Maybe some book reports will follow. But for now, it’s back to my librarian’s role. Now, under what category should I put “The ACLU vs. America?”