Little things matter

We discovered this weekend (as if we didn't now this already), that I am somewhere between a geek and a nerd, or rather a comic book geek/nerd. A gerd, I guess. Or a neek. I grew up reading comics. I was there at the beginning when Marvel began putting out its mighty marching marvel bunch. I had the first Spider-Man, the first Fantastic Four, the first Avengers even the first X-Men with the "real" first class.

I read then. I kept them. I'd be rich if they hadn't been throw away at some point (not by me, of course).

This summer has been a revelation for me. Movies with Thor and especially Captain America. I was there when the Avengers in their fourth issue discovered a frozen Cap and he would be revived for my reading (and years later viewing) pleasure.

Always a Marvel guy, I am salivating for next summer's Avengers movie as are several million folks.

I say all that to say, once again, that as I grow older, as I grow no less wiser despite the creeping creepiness of age and pain, some things always draw me back to a simpler time.

I remember walking the 1/4 mile down the winding driveway of home to the mailbox day after day after day waiting so impatiently for the Merry Marvel Marching Society stuff to come. I had sent off, from the back of a comic of course, my application. I was about nine when I did that. I was on top of the world when it came, though it really was a bunch of nothing. But I was a FAN, in a fan club. The only fan club I was ever part of.

Memories fade. My children mostly never picked up the love of holding a fresh, new Marvel book, though one of them became a mis-guided DC comics fan (Batman, schmatman).

But here we are, 50 years later and those still exist.

In a spiritual blog, where does this fit (I hear you asking)? Just this. My devotion to reading never stopped. It has helped me through a career in journalism, through the writing of four books (two of which were published with minimal success). But mostly it has helped me through a love of reading the Word of God.

I read and understand because of those books I bought so long ago, often against my mother's wishes. God takes the smallest of things and applies God-strength to them. Do everything you do for the glory of God, friends, even reading to your kids or helping them master the love of reading.