You can learn more about me by seeing what's on my bookshelf than most other enquiries.

This quote led me to think about the idea of "what do the books on your bookshelf say about your world view?"

In my own case, I thought that my book shelf was a better indicator of my world view twenty years ago than it is today. And I believed that it would be an even less of an indicator in the future. That's because many of the ideas and images that I pick up today aren't from the pages of a book, but from the screens of my various digital appliances, especially via my computer and the Internet. It's difficult to display those in an easy-to-grasp way for the casual browser, unless I print out & display in some form thousands of pages, etc.

When I was younger, it gave me great comfort to see all of my books spread out on book shelves. I'd look at them and think, "So that's what I know!" (Don't laugh, I'm sure many of you have been there as well.) I also find it interesting to look at other people's books and their record collections.

As the years have gone on people close to me said that my philosophy would change and I would need to give a lot of my books away to friends and libraries, or to finish up leaving them at the 'local 'tip'. In a sense some of that is true. The interesting thing is that I am really loathe to give any books away, even if I'm no longer comfortable with them, or now think they are 'rubbish, and so on. I know that there is a core set of books that I go back to from time to time for inspiration. These are books and authors that every one I know (well of all the people I know no-one agrees with these books and authors - but there may be some-one I may meet who does) thinks are, to try and find a helpful phrase, no longer worth the read or consideration.

The fascinating(?) thing is that I seem to have regressed in that I now hold even stronger book, authors & the ideas, philosophies, strategies, etc. that I held passionately at the beginning of my ministry. This is not a form of 'fundamentalism' rather the views of the '60's that I held were called radical & revolutionary then. Nowadays they'd be considered to have fallen off the end of the left of the world.

So, look at the books on my shelves - they'll tell you much about me.