Two achievements by the New Year
Geoff Thomas
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.
