Cloud of witnesses

Last week I went to a book show (Religious Booksellers Trade Exhibit) and I remembered why I wrote a poem in 7th grade called Books Are Our Friends, for which I won, of course, a book, called Clare Goes to Holland. There's something reassuring and inviting about a large area filled with books. Experience or knowledge take on a certain orderliness when compressed into book form. As I grew and read and learned I knew for certain that books enlarged my experience. How strange that people don't read. What a loss for them. It's such a cheap vacation getaway. People in religion sometimes use the phrase "cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 12:1), a lovely Pauline figure of speech that describes a sense of blessed company. Saint Dostoevsky, pray for us. Saint Tolstoy, pray for us.