I barely slept last night because it was so hot in our house. We are outrageously frugal with our air conditioning. I mean, as long God made cold glasses of ice water, electric fans and clinical strength anti-perspirants,  why should we start shelling out buku bucks to cool our home while most of the world lives in shacks without any sort of temperature control at all? We won’t close the windows and adjust the thermostat, we pledge, until we feel like we are absolutely dying. Friends, that moment of surrender came this morning about 12:45 when we realized the bedroom had not cooled down enough in two hours for either one of us to sleep a wink. In the insanity and boredom, we had a middle of the night pillow fight that finally wore us out enough to break into fitful dozing until the morning. Needless to say, I was completely exhausted and unexcited about most of life all day. After work I saw that a big box of books came, and I lazily thumbed through each one a bit in some effort to decide which one to read first.
Amidst the weariness I found myself so refreshed reading this paragraph, from my now top-of-the-list book:

“I was twenty-seven when I first read the story about the Hasidic rabbi who told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put Scripture on their hearts. A woman asked him, “But why on our hearts instead of in them?” The rabbi answered, “Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.”
– “the scent of water” by naomi zacharias

I’m really looking forward to reading this and I’ll be sure to share my thoughts on it when I’m through. Have you been reading lately, and reading the sorts of books that really make you think?