Spoils from the Conquest at Barnes and Nobles

So I am on the Upper East Side of Manhattan reading THE FOUR AGREEMENTS BY DON MIGUEL RUIZ. Now I have read this book before, maybe twice. Once because Oprah said to, and you know Oprah used to have the power of the Wizard of Oz.....'The Color is Green! You don't want to be seen if you ain't in green' Another I think at the University of Santa Monica where I earned a MA in Spiritual Psychology and this time, because my dear friend and I were in the book store late last night and he kept asking me, "Matt what is a book I must read?" The adventure began...man I was like," Malcolm X, Souls of Black Folk, Man Child in the Promised Land, no no have you read The Alchemist!?" We were running through the bookstore like kids in a candy store. All of that information steaming up from those books for us to touch and take in its contents. I pulled Siddhartha, he pulled Uncle Tom's Cabin, I pulled Conversations with God, he pulled Oliver Twist. Roots or Malcolm X, Before the Mayflower or Seat of the Soul? The Four Agreements!! Before you know it I am grabbing books to! The fever has hit me and even though I read this book the soul readies itself to hear deeper and more and my soul leaped with joy and said yes! "This is it this is the one you must read!" He wasn't convinced and I think he was right, this was for me.

I had no idea the exhilarating, energizing feeling reading gave me. I was like, "ooooooo you gotta have some James Baldwin in your life! Oh wait, Zora......oooooooo no Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fannon!!! He discovered God in the dagon concentration camps!!! He found peace among the ruins of hate and mayhem........yeah you need that in your life" So many books so much information and God gifted insights and perspectives and journeys and adventures........whew! This was fun! A bookstore.....this much fun....really? Two friends sharing information/light.....an utter joy and gift.

Finally, we stood at the checkout line, perusing our remains of the day (not a bad movie), with a sober more practical knowing; we weren't going to impulse buy the 10 or so books we collectively held. Moving the books back and forth like they were playing cards and we making choices for the draft, we made our final selections as if this was it. And for this moment this was it. There will be more books and more times to read books just like there is a new draft each year but this was the selection for this moment, this season and it felt VERY important.

He settled for Malcolm X, Siddhartha, and The Art of War.....CLASSICS....MUST READS. I on Siddhartha (again), Seat of the Soul (again) and The Four Agreements (again).

Ahhhh let the insights begin...again....