bookstores are nice

I was feeling a little stressed out—like butter scraped over too much bread—and heading home down a street in another part of town. I’d seen the little room fitted with bookshelves, hardly big enough to be called a bookstore, before, and kept walking. In a place that size it’s hard to “curiosare” anonymously. But this time one of the books on the little display table caught my eye—What’s Wrong With the World, by G.K. Chesterton. And next to it—Surprised by Joy, by C.S. Lewis. And there was another Lewis book. I hate to admit it, but I think it was actually seeing the Mark Twain book that toppled me over the edge. I had to go in and have a look.

It was just a tiny room, but with ceiling-high wooden bookshelves out of my reach, classical music playing and a man and woman sitting behind the desk. She hurried forward politely in a navy-and white retro-styled dress, and offered help, but I just wanted to look. There was a shelf full of Chesterton’s works, including ones I’ve never heard of in English, and right under him was the shelf with Tolkien and Lewis. Clearly this was the Right Sort of bookstore—not like the San Paolo one that has chick flicks in the window and glaring yellow light.

The man finished his phone call and asked if I’d been introduced to the order, and quickly made the proper presentations. I expressed my approbation of the authors on the shelves, and asked if they didn’t possibly have any in English? Alas, no. But he sent me a link to a site with all of Chesterton’s works online.

The store was Catholic, and so were they, and they asked if I was, but were still very nice when it was discovered that I wasn’t, and seemed glad to hear that our group was here to teach Scripture. “If you have any good books on the Scriptures, let me know and maybe we can keep them here,” he offered. “As long as they’re good—we’re very selective.” And just to be sure I knew they weren’t prejudiced, he showed me the Bible story book that they have used to teach their own children, put out by an evangelical publishing house.

Before I left they gave me a book as a gift, on—wouldn’t you know it—suffering. I laughed, and then had to explain why. The wife was also extending a calendar toward me, but her husband said, “You know, I don’t think the evangelicals are very much in agreement with the saints,” and she pulled it back apologetically as if it would bite me, laughing a little embarrassedly.

I left feeling like I had friends.