Old Friends

Everyone should have a few books that are like old friends. I’m reading through Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy for (I think?) the fourth time since college. I’ve been through a lot since then, and changed a lot - partly thanks to the book!

Its cover is worn and stained. The pages are starting to separate from the spine in one place. It is signed by the author: “For Gabe - Josh 1:8-9, Dallas” because I ran back to my dorm room to get it when I realized he was speaking at a Biola chapel. Somehow the signature means more to me now that he’s passed on from this life. It is marked up all over, in blue and black and green ink. I even used a highlighter in one place (I never use highlighters). Some of the underlining is sloppy or wavy - I read those sections in a car or bus and was unwilling to wait for it to stop to get a neat line. Some of the margin comments from an earlier me make present me cringe a little. Or a lot.

Reading it now, for probably the first time in 10 years, brings a sense of familiarity along with the newness of remembering what I’d forgotten. In a funny way I see myself in parts of it - “oh yeah, this is where I got that idea.” And there’s also some comfort in finding a thread of continuity in my life that stretches so far back. Like I said I’ve changed a lot, and not always in ways I wanted to. I’ve seen a lot that I thought was good turn out to be bad, or at least to be so mixed up with bad that it’s hard to believe in the good. But Willard’s teaching on discipleship to Jesus is something that I’m sure about the goodness of.