The desert island list

Hubby and I became homeowners yesterday, and we move Monday. Much of what we own is in boxes. But there are a few handfuls of books I can’t bear to put away yet. As if I might be called to preach this Sunday or lead a retreat . . .

Add in the fact that I am working my way through the third season of Battlestar Galactica, (which if you don’t know) the story of the human race — on other planets — fleeing a genocidal apocalypse with hope of finding Earth. So a continuing plot device is considering what was brought along — some quite improbable things — and what might be found along the way.

So what books — and I’m skewing to the theological — would you pack last and take first?

By Scott Wells

Scott Wells, 46, is a Universalist Christian minister doing Universalist theology and church administration hacks in Washington, D.C.

8 comments

  1. Hey, congratulations on homeownership!

    At some point fairly recently, I got rid of just about all theological texts, and kept only fiction or nonfiction by people I know and like. I felt a lot lighter. I still have a bible.

  2. Oh, Scott, that’s wonderful news! Huge congratulations to both of you! And while I know this is primarily a theological blog, I’d love to see a brief detour post in which you share your impressions on BSG.

  3. Scott,

    Congrats on the new house!! I actually have my desert island list, because I packed a bag of books to bring with me to California, separate from my boxes (that are still packed – I’m am place-less, still.)

    A book by Pema Chodron
    A book of poems by Mary Oliver
    Thomas Keaton’s book on Centering Prayer
    A Bible
    A couple of science fiction novels
    My Benedictine prayer book
    A couple of technology related nonfiction books

    I think it’s a nice variety.

  4. Dear Scott,
    Congratulations on the new home!
    A few books:-
    Bible.
    The beliefs of a Unitarian by Alfred Hall.
    The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen.
    Tennyson’s complete poems.
    Thomas a Kempis Imitation of Christ
    Edward Conze’s Buddhism, its essence and development.
    An encyclopaedia of railways.

  5. I’ve often wondered what books I should take to a desert island…. and of course which books should I leave on that island …

    “47 Years in the Universalist Ministry” by D. B. Clayton; this is his biography, history of southern Universalism and a debate book.
    “Hymns of the Spirit – with Services” (Red Hymnal) this is the 1937 hymnal. It’s argued that most hymnals are at least ten years out of date – which means this one is from the 1920s or earlier – good – contains the traditional and the modern

    One of those universalist proof books, one of Hanson’s or one of Manford’s
    (I note on a shelf I have Manford’s “150 reasons to believe in the final salvation of all mankind”) – Of course keeping both Hanson and Manford together will make them mumble (they feuded).

    Probably would take the five volume set of the “Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman” – short stories are great to pick up quickly – if i had to pick one, I’d take my “Who Fears the Devil” Arkham House edition. It being a collectors item is better to look at than read however….so I’d pick one volume at random.

    And I’d last pack whatever I’m reading now (“Nathaniel Greene” )

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