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Three Cheers for a Good Book!
Solid food is for the mature,
who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
HEBREWS 5:14
We can strip the knight of his armor, to reveal that he looks exactly like us, or we can try on the armor ourselves to experience how it feels. Fiction provides an ideal opportunity to try on the armor.
C. S. LEWIS
Dinner was over at 6:30. We switched off the telephone and went into the living room to read the next chapter of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring. Just as we sat down, the doorbell rang. It was Mark's friend from down the street; he was part of our reading adventure. The two of them sprawled their lanky teenage bodies across the floor, and Father began reading. It took twenty minutes to read the chapter aloud, and the length of the next chapter was too long to allow us to sneak in a second one. We all made some kind of noise at the end of the reading: a sigh, a comment on the adventure, or an inquiry about the plotline---expressing our pleasure at 'words fitly spoken.' Then we got up and left the world of the shire and hobbits and went about our business---homework, a meeting, the dishes.
We began reading aloud the first book of this trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, as we drove home from skiing one weekend. We knew we had to finish the experience together. The first book hooked us into the adventure of these hobbits and easily wooed us into the second volume. By the time we got to the third volume, The Return of the King, summer had come and we were together, canoe-camping on the edge of a lake in Canada. Each evening we read around the fire in the fading light, with the night sounds of loons echoing across the lake. One day rain and a strong wind blew arctic coldness into our campsite. It would not be a good day for exploring, so the four of us huddled into one tent, snuggled into sleeping bags. Only the reader sat upright swaddled in blankets as we took turns reading chapter after chapter, going on an adventure far beyond the one we had canceled because of the rain. Sometimes the reader paused because a lump in the throat stopped up the words. No one felt embarrassed by tears; we were all wet-eyed. Beautiful word choices, raw courage, incredible goodness---it was almost too much to bear.
I mention this favorite memory partly because it warms my heart, but primarily to point out that something bigger than the book was happening as we read together. Feelings of closeness and under-standing are woven into our memories of the marvelous adventure of the Tolkien trilogy; we 'belong' to each other in some special way. We have laughed together and cried together and wondered together. More than that, the book told us something about honor and truth, about valor and integrity, about what goodness looks like in a person. The impact of these books was more profound than any teaching we could ever give. Out of the books flowed ideas to talk about, behavior to emulate, feelings to share.
This book is about books---about using good stories in raising healthy teens.
It has never been harder to bring children to adulthood with your family values intact. The world is swirling with ideas and dissonance and our technology brings both into our homes. What is base or immodest becomes the story line of sitcoms on television. Clever writers brew up scenes that evoke laughter over what is offensive and demeaning. Disrespectful remarks and put-downs are the stuff of comedy. The music industry invades the air space with its cacophony and sometimes life-destroying words.
Pop culture 'strips the knight of his armor,' as C. S. Lewis observed in the quote at the beginning of this chapter. It reduces everything to its lowest level. Teens lose the vision of what they could be, of what they were meant to be, created in God's image. Our the-sis (and Lewis's) is that good books allow a young person to try on the armor and see what it feels like to be a knight.
Anti-culture speeches from parents and others have little effect on pop-cultural 'cool.' Restrictions and rules about behavior in some instances protect our children but, unless parents make some effort to help young people understand the world and how to live in it, they leave an empty place that can potentially be filled with lesser or greater evils. The situation is similar to the one Jesus described when teaching about Beelzebub. A place swept clean is meant to be filled with something positive; otherwise, says Jesus, the empty place is filled with other wrong things.
I thought of this recently as I listened to a mother expressing her pain over her daughter's absorption with the teen-culture, pulling away from the family and participating in unacceptable behavior, breaking family rules, and hanging out with the wrong crowd. The daughter's display of anger and resentment is tearing apart the fabric of this family. The mother's anguish caught at my heart.
But I also thought of the complacency of other parents whose teens are outwardly playing by the family rules, but exhibiting a self-centeredness, a disinterest in other family members that frightens me. Some are hooked on computer games and basically anti-social. These parents ignore all the symptoms that should dismay them. They let them go their own way, shrugging their shoulders as they wait for these years to be over. My guess is that the rebellious teen has the advantage of the most prayer. One situation looks more desperate than another, but God is not finished with either of them yet. All teens need help to transcend their small concept of what it means to be a human being; they need guidance and prayer.
