The Shelf Across the Room

Transmission from Dale

I've got a lot of books.

Too many books, according to some people.

Those people are wrong, but that's a different discussion.

The point is that books have a habit of arranging themselves into neighborhoods. Horror over here. Science fiction over there. Cryptids lurking in a suspicious corner. Old television history occupying an entire shelf through sheer stubbornness.

For years, my religion and philosophy books lived on the opposite side of the room from my horror books.

That seemed reasonable.

After all, what could Dracula possibly have in common with Augustine?

What does The Twilight Zone have to do with theology?

What does a ghost story have to do with a Bible?

Turns out, quite a bit.

The older I get, the more I've noticed the books talking to each other when they think I'm not listening.

Walk over to the horror shelf and you'll find stories asking:

• What is evil?
• Why are we afraid?
• What happens after death?
• Can a person be redeemed?

Walk over to the religion shelf and you'll find books asking:

• What is evil?
• Why are we afraid?
• What happens after death?
• Can a person be redeemed?

Well, hell.

Apparently they've been discussing the same subjects this whole time.

The monster books just have better cover art.

I used to think the shelves represented separate interests.

Now I'm not so sure.

A vampire story asks questions about immortality.

A ghost story asks questions about death.

A science-fiction story asks what it means to be human.

A theology book asks many of the same things, usually with fewer tentacles.

Everyone is circling the same mysteries from different directions.

That's one reason I've never understood people who dismiss either shelf.

The skeptic who refuses to think about spiritual questions and the believer who refuses to engage with imagination are making the same mistake.

They're abandoning half the library.

The best stories and the deepest beliefs both begin with a simple admission:

We don't fully understand this universe.

We're trying.

We're searching.

We're asking questions.

The horror writer asks what waits in the darkness.

The philosopher asks what darkness is.

The theologian asks whether the darkness wins.

Those are different questions, but they're neighbors.

Lately I've found myself carrying books back and forth between the shelves.

A ghost story here.

A devotional there.

Some folklore.

A little philosophy.

An old Bible with worn pages.

A monster movie guide.

I suspect the shelves are moving closer together when I'm asleep.

Either that or I'm finally noticing that they were never as far apart as I thought.

The room hasn't changed.

The books haven't changed.

Only the reader.

And perhaps that's what growing older really is.

You spend years collecting answers only to discover you've been gathering questions.

Good questions.

The sort that keep a man reading long after midnight.

The sort that keep him looking up at the stars.

The sort that make him wonder if hope is every bit as mysterious as the monsters.

Until next time, keep watching the skies.

And don't be surprised if the religion shelf and the horror shelf start sharing books.

Mine certainly have.

— Dale