Two achievements by the New Year
Two men startled our New Year with their very different achievements. The first was 35 year-old New Yorker Tucker Shaw who photographed everything he ate in the year 2004 from breakfast on 1 January, through all his meals, every glass of milk, each piece of candy, fruit or bag of crisps until his supper on 31 December. He is the first man in history ever to have done this. He certainly ‘snapped’ away a lot of times. The discipline of the routine he established, he said, reminded him of his Christian grandparents out west who always prayed bowing their heads before they had a meal. He bowed and took a photo. The book he has written containing all the photographs of this unusual achievement of self-disciplined photography will come out in June. It is to be entitled ‘A Year in the Life of My Mouth’ (Chronicle Books).
The other man’s achievement was very different. He too is 35; is there something about the mid-thirties for self-assertion? His name is A J Jacobs. He bought a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and read it through in a year: 33,000 pages; 9500 contributors; 65,000 articles; 24,000 images all neatly bound in 32 volumes; the total, 44 million words.
The edition of the Encyclopaedia which Jacobs chose to read was the fifteenth, published in 1974. There is a fan club for the eleventh edition published in 1911, for the purity of its style, and the humanistic triumphalism of its writers (such as T H Huxley) with their solemn pronouncement that the remainder of the 20th century would be characterised by the ‘lessening of international jealousies.’ The world of the EB to this day is one in which civilisation is progressing and everything treated rationally and sensibly is working out for the best.
On he went, sitting in his customary groove on the white couch and reading away until finally he reached the last entries. Zuchetto – the skullcap worn by Roman Catholic clergymen. Zulu – the African nation. Zunz – a Jewish scholar. Zurich ware – a type of Swiss porcelain. Zveno Group – a Bulgarian political party. Zywiec – a town of 32,000 people in south-central Poland. And then it was over. The 15th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica has been read in its entirety. Jacobs says, ‘I wasn’t sure what to do. I shut the back cover quietly. I stood up from the couch, then sat back down. What now? I knew first hand the oceanic volume of information in the world. I know that I know very little of that ocean and I know this, that after a year I’ve got my life back.’ So what did A J Jacobs actually do next? He wrote a book now in print about reading the EB through in a year called ‘The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World’ (William Heinemann, £10.99).
What can we learn from this? What strength of will have people made in the image of God to persevere in self-appointed goals? Certainly that is true. How much more should those who also have limitless access to a divine Saviour do the things God requires of them throughout their entire life time – turning the other cheek, forgiving seventy times seven, loving their wives as Christ loved the church, etc.
Or can we profit on these lines? A record of everything that has entered a man’s body, and a record of much that has entered a man’s mind is known to those two men and to any who might be interested, whereas God himself knows everything about us all exhaustively. Every action done; every word spoken; every thought in our minds; every fleeting imagination; the dreams so quickly forgotten; the desire that spontaneously exploded and died down; all are known to God. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:13). How solemn, to live in a moral universe and to be dealing with the Creator who knows us exhaustively. There is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether (Psalm 139:4).
Or perhaps we can learn this, that all the wisdom of man is vanity? Has the knowledge these two men gained been of saving or sanctifying value to them? Has their disclosure of this information been of similar value to those who have heard, as they shook their heads and marvelled at the achievements? What was Solomon’s experience after all his studies? I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted. I thought to myself, ‘Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.’ Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief (Ecclesiastes 1:13-17).
Or perhaps we should challenge whether such hours of mere reading are a justifiable use of time in a dying world? Was that goal not a sinful goal? An entire year spent sitting on a white settee reading, isn’t that an indulgence? There are needs all around me, in my home, amongst my friends and neighbours and I shelter myself sitting down in a quiet room burying my nose in high culture? That too is a way to hell. When God the Son came from heaven he did not spend a year fenced off from mankind ‘studying.’ He went about doing good, and wept over a great city.
Our goal then is not to read many books but to know one book supremely well, God’s own book, the Bible, because it is full of information of the most wonderful man this world has ever seen. Our concern is not what goes into our bodies as much as what is coming out of our hearts, and as so much of that is tainted by sin to apply ourselves to the God who can wash our hearts and make us clean, and deal with the power to live from within a life that glorifies and pleases him, and so fulfill our chief end in life.