A friend of mine lately told me: I love books, I love reading books, I love smelling books. I love browsing book shops. I love pursuing libraries. I love rummaging friends' bookshelves! Friends call me a book addict! Charles William Elliot used to say, "Books are the quietest and most constant of friends. They are the most accessible and wisest of the counsellors, the most of teachers".
But do people read books anymore? And what type of books do they read? Do our gorgeous houses still have space for bookshelves? How much do we budget for the purchase of books? Do we allow to have dirty books in our houses especially in a family, where there are children growing and forming a character? Do we teach through our example to read good books?
Plato used to say: "That a house which has no library is a house without a soul." I think that our minds are shaped by the books we read, and our characters by the people we meet, while our spirits by the love we give. Vittorio Zgarbi a learned Art expert asks: "What is the value of books today in our life? A form of straight forward resistance to socials and to the ephemeral thoughts. But learned people instead profess that a person that reads books, discovers every day the enormousness of his personal ignorance."
Malala Yousaf Razi intelligently used to write: "If you want to cease the war, instead of sending weapons, send books, instead of consigning tankers, send pens, instead of shipping soldiers consign educators." Today people sit around on their phone for hours on end, but when I pull out a book, I am accused of being antisocial. Remember that extraordinary, intelligent and mature people have big libraries for themselves but more and more for their growing childness; the odd thing about people who have lots of books is that they always want more. Our founder Don Bosco had a very proper word adapted to everyone, especially in the education of his young people. He was a man of books and of libraries. Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say: "We are all like pencils in the hands of God. Jesus writes very straight on crooked lines." And Plato shouts: "Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination."
A sad feeling is when, walking through the streets, I see good and valuable books thrown in the garbage and I smell the aroma of the old and precious good and rare books coming out!
A book is not just papers and words. It is a door and a key. It is a road and a journey. It is a thousand new sights, sensations and sounds. It holds friendships, experiences and life lessons. A book is an entire world!
Try not to take me into a bookstore, unless you are prepared to drag me out only when I have fainted or I am in ecstasy. In the English literature we find these impressive words: "People come, people go, and they will drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favourite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you stand up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures.
We do not realise the amount of time, research, study and reflection went into writing a book. Look around... there are libraries full of thousands or millions of books and at the back thousands of sellers, researchers, hours of hard work but especially a lot of creativity and innovation. Avin Toffer used to say: "A library is a hospital for the mind" and nothing beats that feeling of pride when you look at your own bookshelves. There are bits and pieces of yourself, scattered in every book you read. It saddens me every time I hear a person saying: "I do read or I do not learn, or I do not love, or worse I do not live." Miguel da Cervantes wrote: "The pen is the tongue of the mind. I think as many learned people used to say culture is the only salvation of the world."
Once I heard an old Salesian say: "As we grow older, real beauty travels from the face of the heart, appeal turns to charm, hurt to wisdom and great moments to share memories. The true beauty of life is not how happy you are now, but how happy others are because of you." It is true that books wash away from the soul the dust of everyday life!
I like to read old books because I would rather learn from those who built civilizations than those who tore it down, as we are experiencing here on our dear island Malta!
Kristian Butler sends this moving message to our dear government and the people in Malta: "Be a reflection of what you would like to receive. If you want love, give love. If you want truth, be truthful. If you want respect give respect. Remember that what you give out will always return to you."
The greatest gift, dear parents and educators you can give to your children is a passion for reading. It is deep, it consoles, it distracts, it excites and it gives the knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is moral illumination," Elizabeth Hardwick.
It is difficult to write and say the truth but the martyr of the Italian Brigade Rosse, Aldo Moro courageously used to say: "When you tell the truth, you should not regret saying it. The truth is always illuminating; it helps us to be brave." We have to remember that Moro was killed and his body found in Rome in the back of a car.
What is happening in Malta and Gozo is humiliating the people of good will, it is being written in our daily life! There will be nothing that can erase the past history. But the strongest among us all are the ones who smile through silent pain. Cry behind closed doors and fight battles nobody knows about; but woe to those who create suffering and oppression.
"Men, when perfected is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, is the worst of all. Since armed with injustice is the more dangerous, and he is equipped at birth with arms of intelligence and moral qualities which he may use for the worst ends." Aristotle.
In Malta we had enough exhortations to force us into silence. Cry out with a thousand tongues. I see the world is rotten because of silence. Kafka once wrote: "And once the storm is over you will not remember how you made it thorough, how you managed to survive: you will not even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you will not be the same person you walked in. That is what this storm is all about."