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Hey friends,

I feel that if you ask people who blog, they will all say that the hardest thing about writing something is coming up with a title….it’s ridiculous!! (I have no evidence to back up what I just said, other than my own struggles in coming up with a title, as evidenced by the title for this particular post)

It’s different than a song – the title is usually pretty evident in a song……I bet it’s that way for bands too…..I bet it’s tough to come up with something good…..

Anyways,  i’ve managed to start reading again.  Sometimes I go through phases where I can’t read enough; then other times it feels like such a chore to pick up a book and become more intelligent.  It’s so much easier to just watch some tv or a movie or do something else dumb….not that all television and movies are dumb…..I enjoy watching The Office and The Colbert Report, and enjoy movies probably more than the next person…

But, I feel like I’m back to being excited about reading, which sounds really nerdy after I’ve just read that out loud….oh well.  I’ll tell you what helped start it – a book called Seagalogy…….that’s right – it’s a book about the films of Steven Seagal.  Weird, right?  Not if you were a teenager when his movies were popular and grew up wishing that you were a martial arts hero who could take on anybody….looking back, it’s funny how just watching some of those movies made you a little more confident than you probably should be…..

But that’s not the only book I’ve been reading – because you can only read so much about the films of Steven Seagal, trust me – I’ve also picked up a few others recently that I’ve cracked open:  Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell, Talent Is Never Enough by John C. Maxwell, Next Generation Leader by Andy Stanley, Pop Goes the Church by Tim Stevens, and a couple other little short booklets that I went through quickly….

Reading I guess represents for me a quest for knowledge and a way to stimulate your brain to be creative… Most forms of entertainment take away the need for imagination.  Television, movies – everything is right in front of you and you don’t have to use your mind creatively at all; but read a book……you’re forced to picture the things you’re reading, to use your imagination….I remember reading the Ted Dekker trilogy of Black, Red, and White.  Each of these books was about 400 pages long, and I read the entire trilogy in less than a week and a half…..that might not sound like much, but that’s 1200 pages of reading, and I remember being so engrossed in those books that literally every spare second I had I would read…..and they were SO…GOOD!!!  So imaginative and creative……and such a great story!!

I think my parents are the reason that I love to read.  When we were growing up, we didn’t have a television until I was 15.  Say what you want about that, I guess, but I think we’re better off for it.  We read all the time – I can remember getting a quarter for every book we read, and we had lots of books to read – The Bobbsey Twins and The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew filled shelves in our house.

I remember my dad sitting down in the living room with 4 or 5 apples and just reading, and without fail I could go into my parents room in the morning and mom would be reading a devotional book, or go in at night and dad would be reading some book – usually a western by Zane Grey or Louis L’Amour…..

I’m not sure how I ended up here in this blog….Thanksgiving is right around the corner and my parents and 2 of my sisters will be here for Thanksgiving for the first time ever, which is very cool for me…..

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, even something as simple as reading….