6/12/08 MOUWS CONFESSION re BOOKS HE's READ (or hasn't): "... about a sin of omission in their response. My personal confession is about St. Augustine’s Confessions. I have never gotten very far into it. Worst of all, I’m sure I have given the impression that I know the book well. I’ve often quoted this well- known prayer, with the comment that it is a favorite line of mine from his writings: “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” Well, I really do like that line, and I have in fact read extensively in Augustine’s other works. But that particular prayer occurs in the Confessions’ opening paragraph. Many times I have started there and have kept going. Sometimes I get 30 pages into the book before I allow myself to get distracted. Months later I pick the book up again, and decide ... [What he didread] .... I read all of the “Sugar Creek Gang” books, and another series, published by the Moody Bible Institute, about a kid named Danny Orlis. A woman from our church (my dad was a preacher) gave them to me and I read them all. Danny was a clean-living, chaste, truth-telling fundamentalist kid and he was my role model for a while in my early teens. Then the big conflict occurred. Danny Orlis squared off with Holden Caulfield. Finding me much too pious, my first college roommate one day shoved Catcher in the Rye into my hands and told me I needed to read it. I did, and it started a battle in my soul. And even though J.D. Salinger ultimately lost the battle, my grown-up Danny Orlis has absorbed more than a few of Holden Caulfield’s traits. I suspect that most of us can go back even further if we are really honest about the books that have shaped us..." http://www.netbloghost.com/mouw/?m=200806

6/12/08 MOUWS CONFESSION re BOOKS HE's READ (or hasn't): "... about a sin of omission in their response. My personal confession is about St. Augustine’s Confessions. I have never gotten very far into it. Worst of all, I’m sure I have given the impression that I know the book well. I’ve often quoted this well- known prayer, with the comment that it is a favorite line of mine from his writings: “Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” Well, I really do like that line, and I have in fact read extensively in Augustine’s other works. But that particular prayer occurs in the Confessions’ opening paragraph. Many times I have started there and have kept going. Sometimes I get 30 pages into the book before I allow myself to get distracted. Months later I pick the book up again, and decide ...
[What he didread]
.... I read all of the “Sugar Creek Gang” books, and another series, published by the Moody Bible Institute, about a kid named Danny Orlis. A woman from our church (my dad was a preacher) gave them to me and I read them all. Danny was a clean-living, chaste, truth-telling fundamentalist kid and he was my role model for a while in my early teens. Then the big conflict occurred. Danny Orlis squared off with Holden Caulfield. Finding me much too pious, my first college roommate one day shoved Catcher in the Rye into my hands and told me I needed to read it. I did, and it started a battle in my soul. And even though J.D. Salinger ultimately lost the battle, my grown-up Danny Orlis has absorbed more than a few of Holden Caulfield’s traits. I suspect that most of us can go back even further if we are really honest about the books that have shaped us..."

http://www.netbloghost.com/mouw/?m=200806