List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

There’s good and bad to being a diagnosed hoarder. Ok, mostly not great, but there’s some good sides.

Before 2020 I was an avid reader. I’ve read every book on the shelves in the photo several times, from Narnia and Lord of the Rings through about 20 Max Lucado books, John Eldredge, six different translations of the Bible and all the pre-2020 Alex Cross series by James Patterson.

Spending 3 months in a coma in 2020 didn’t affect most of my higher functions, but my ability to concentrate was impaired – not great for someone with ADHD to begin with.

I’ve switched to “reading” through Audible, a very different experience, but one I’m relieved to say enables me to enjoy books again – albeit not as rewarding as the full tactile and olfactory experience of a bound volume.

At 53, picking 3 books of the hundreds I own that have impacted me isn’t easy. Not just because of my age, but because in some cases I’m not sure if the book or the person who introduced it to me is what created the impact.

So I’m going to go with these…

Anyone who has read anything I’ve written shouldn’t be surprised that the first on my list is actually a collection of 66 books written by over 40 writers over around 1500 years, in three languages – each with a different alphabet – on three continents. Not all the writers had access to all the other books contained, yet the collection contains 63,779 cross-referenced quotes internally.

Obviously (I hope) I’m referring to the Bible. And as to why, read some of my other posts.

My second book is also a collection. The CS Lewis Narnia series. The seven stories captured my imagination as a child and by the time I was 8 I’d read all of them. My son is six and loves them as much as I did, even reading them himself.

Narnia is one of those rare collections in literature that carries a different meaning each time you read it. As a child it was a simple story about a magical land. As a younger adult I revelled in the beauty of the allegorical weaving of the story, the parallels of the journeys each character travels with different people in the Bible and their journeys. Reading them with my son is a new experience again, and one which I’m delighted is helping the problems I’ve had for 5 years finally heal. Seeing him fall in love with the Pevensie children, Caspian, Bree and Shasta, and especially Reepicheep the mouse nearly fifty years after I did is a very special experience for me.

My final book is Bruce Wilkinson’s The Dream Giver. Part parable, part sermon it helps me see how the seasons of my life are part of a single story, not disjointed events of happenstance lost in time, and that nothing that happens is meaningless if I give the events to God and let Him show me the Truth through them.

Life is a funny experience. There are hundreds of other books that have hit me. Waking the Dead by John Eldredge, Six Hours One Friday by Max Lucado, the Tripods Trilogy by John Christopher and more than I can list.

That’s the advantage of hoarding books – I’ve got enough to keep me going another fifty years!

Describe one simple thing you do that brings joy to your life.

Where our hearts truly lie is in peace and quiet and good tilled earth…

I’m not sure if it’s in either Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, but the quote is certainly in the start of Peter Jackson’s movie Fellowship of the Ring.

I think I’d have been happy as a hobbit. Maybe not the pipeweed, but certainly I have a love of things that grow.

The past year has seen some major upheavals in my life. The loss of my wife, my son moving from Kindergarten to Grade School and by the end of this year (hopefully, although not planned) the sale of this house and a move to somewhere we can be debt free and start fresh.

Over the last few years I’ve been researching if I’d be able to make my joy into something more practical.

So now I’m looking for a smallholding – which in South Africa can be 40+ acres/20+ hectares – where I can, literally, put down roots.

There’s very little that brings me joy more than seeing something I’ve planted as seed growing and becoming fruit or vegetables I can put on my table. Admittedly 20 hectares is a tiny bit bigger than my garden with two tomato plants and a herb bed this year, but having looked at the pros and cons I’m optimistic about getting it off the ground.

It’ll also give me an opportunity to focus a bit on my writing and build a small retreat to host small-scale conferences aimed at refreshing church leaders – those men and women who give 52 weeks of the year and are often burned out by 50.

So I’m aiming to kill two birds with one stone. Produce more food than I need so I can sell it locally, including meat and eggs, and to provide a refuge for weary Shepherds to be refreshed.

For starters I just want the joy of working the earth. I’d like to use horses instead of diesel and do it at a slower pace than the insane tempo of the world.

Over the years I’ve only had two out of the last 35 when I’ve not had a small crop of tomatoes, peppers or other vine plants. And that was because I didn’t plant them.

It’s a simple pleasure, moving at the speed of the seasons instead of the speed of click.

Losing my leg in 2020 actually helped me focus on this passion. I couldn’t read the way I used to. But I could listen. So I listened to hours of lectures on farming, preservation without electricity, and a lot about how farms ran in the late 19th century. Worked with horses or traction engines powered by steam.

Growing food and talking about my Faith both bring me Joy. Simple, slow-paced joy that can’t be taken from me.