Three Books In Quick Succession

             The exact months that it began and came to completion escapes me but I believe it was mid-to-late 1981....to late 1982. It began after a trip that my wife and I had made to Europe. Prince Charles and Diana were soon to be wed....and London was all excited. I had absolutely no interest in Christian history of any kind as we visited London and Belgium and Luxembourg and Switzerland and Paris. We took the ferry across the channel on this trip....years later it would be the Eurostar under the channel. At the time I had no idea who John Bunyan was.....and probably never heard the name Charles Spurgeon.
              I was a reader back then.....even as my shift work in a power plant had me almost daily ankle deep in either coal dust or lime slurry....and a quick succession of three books gives an idea of where my life was at the time....and where it would go. Each book I highlighted throughout and carried with me to work every day in my lunch bag.
              The first was a Pulitzer Prize winner....1974....in general non-fiction.....titled The Denial Of Death....by Ernest Becker....described in bios as a cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary thinker. I mostly shoveled coal and turned valves.....but the book fascinated me as I remember tearing the paperback in half so it would fit in my back pocket. The basic message was that man has to find a way to deal with death....so he constructs theories to justify his existence. Beck died at 49 years of age....only months before his book was awarded the Pulitzer. Bill Clinton claimed that it was one of his favorite books....and Woody Allen's character of Alvy Singer mentioned it to Annie Hall in the Academy Award winning Best Picture of the same name.
             The second book was written thirty years before but became and still is considered a classic.....recommended by President Eisenhower....and Hillary Clinton this time....in her book describing her loss to Donald Trump in 2016. This book....The True Believer.....written by Eric Hoffer....focused on mass movements.....and man's inherent frailty in following.....and becoming a fanatic....in just about anything that would catch his interest....including Christianity. This was a small paperback and did not need tearing in half.
              So the stage was set.....God had set it....and as Psychology Today was delivered to our home in those days....on a cool evening as I remember it.....with my wife shopping at J. C. Penneys....I strolled along the concourse of the strip mall.....and stopped in a Christian bookstore. These bookstores were literally everywhere back then.....a supply line of helps for the Christian....and a life-saver for the seeker.....(my wife and I later owned a Christian bookstore ourselves)....but today are practically non-existent.....and America is much the less because of it.
               I walked in....the store was called It Is Written....and I asked the owner....a lady....if they carried rosaries.....for mine was in my pocket and had snapped in two. Friends at work....Born Again types.....and Christian television....primarily Billy Graham crusades which were fixtures on the UHF channel....and the 700 Club....were beginning to snag my interest in things of God.....even as I was reading these two very anti-religious classic books. The owner politely told me that they did not sell rosaries so I I just browsed.
                Ever since grade school I have had a fascination with outlines. I loved reading something that used outlines. I don't really know why....but give me a book or paper with a....Section I.....Part A.....points 1...2....and so on.....and I seemed to be able to easily follow along. So there was this book in front of me.....Evidence That Demands A Verdict.....also a classic today....edited by Josh McDowell....a well-known in Christian circles apologist of the Christian faith....and it was in outline form. I bought it....and as it explored Christian history and archaeology and prophesy and the writing and compiling of the Bible....using primarily facts and reason....and along with other events in my life....this life would change....immediately in justification....yet slowly....and forever ongoing....in sanctification. Gone was the fascination with The Denial Of Death and The True Believer. 
                 One last little anecdote....probably within a year of reading these three books....a friend of my wife's was over our house one evening for a visit. We had a nice time as she was interested in more serious topics.....and my new Christian faith came up. She had her own favorite book......British philosopher Bertrand Russell's.....Why I Am Not A Christian. She strongly recommended that I read it....upon which I walked to my bookshelf in the same room....pulled out Bertrand Russell's classic.....highlighted throughout....and politely showed it to her.