DEAR BOOK-TROVERTS

A Personal Letter to A Group of Readers

I have mulled over the idea of writing this letter and whether it was a wise thing to do. I have also asked myself by what authority do I have to write this. I have not found any answer for the two questions, my hunch is that I am doing this because, well, I may regret it if I don’t. Isn’t that all we have been learning? To try things even when they don’t make sense.

I am writing this as a call to arms. It is a cry for the deployment of all we have to make this world better. As we are all aware in this group, education is the most powerful tool which we can use to change the world. The question that has remained especially for those of us in our part of the world is how to make sure more people have access to this education. In the past few years, that has been the struggle of mine and some of my friends’ life, in short, that’s how Book-Troverts started. We simply wanted to make books available for people to read.

In this month of letters, I have spent time reflecting on so many different letters across history. One that has remained stuck in my mind was Martin Luther’s letter from Birmingham Jail. That was powerful apologetics for the Civil Rights movement. He ended his letter with these words

“I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader, but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Quite a man MLK was.

Another letter that has remained stuck in my mind is the letter of Vilma Grünwald who wrote to her husband just before execution. Although she was dying, she ended the letter with

“I will be thinking of you and Misa. Have a fabulous life, we must board the trucks.

Into eternity, Vilma.”

Such a bold hope in the face of death. Much respect to her. Both letters had one thing in common, hope! MLK believed that despite the racial problems facing the US and the world, humanity will rise to the occasion and live together as brothers and Vilma believed that despite the tragic way her life was ending, her son and husband will have a fabulous life.

I am also writing today with hope. I have been asked several times whether I believe our continent can rise out of its tragedies, whether the life of the average can become something to be compared with that of the European or the Asian. Just yesterday, Benedict asked me the same question. I deeply believe that this is possible. I believe that our nations within this large continent can work for us. I believe that someday the same way we aspire to become Americans and Brits, others will look up to us as a sample of something good. I believe that someday our government will function effectively. I believe that someday our young boys and young girls will get the best education possible within the continent, that they will create inventions that will change the world, and that our best minds will stay here. I believe that someday clean accessible water will not be a goal for the continent, it will be a reality. I firmly believe that we will overcome our tragedies and let our people live up to their full potential.

Yes, I have been harsh on the continent, but it is a harshness of a lover. It is the kind of reaction from a lover who detests the acts of their beloved. I love this place so much that many times, I do not want to talk about it, but I can’t help it. I am tied to it in a love affair that the court has refused to grant a divorce.

My appeal in this letter is not so much about the future in which we have achieved these things, it is about how we will get there. There are many things to be done, and we are doing the first one, which is getting all the education we can get. It was the Cuban Revolutionary, Che Guevera who said that “the first duty of a revolutionary is to get an education”. However, that is only the first duty.

I am flattered whenever I visit a place and people recognize me pointing out that they follow my updates and are inspired to read. The pleasure of such things is that people get to read due to simple posts on Facebook and Whatsapp. It was just last year that I became intentional about posting the books I have read. Within that one year, I have met several people who said they read those specific books because I posted them. Many times we ended up having conversations about those books. It is always a delight.

Each time such a conversation takes place I think about one person; Peter Emmanuel. Peter Emmanuel played such an important role in my reading life that I cannot measure today. See, I didn’t always like reading. I’m not sure whether I still do today. But it was Peter who led me to the treasures in books. Peter is a neighbor of mine who had books in his room. During those days he will try to get me to read a particular book but I just will not be interested. Instead of giving up, he will offer another title tomorrow. He gave me so many different books that eventually I began seeing the ones I could enjoy. He will ask if I have finished reading the book I picked, he will ask what I thought about a specific character or event, and he will push me to check up on another book. It was Peter who introduced me to the God’s Generals series, it was him who introduced me to all the leadership experts from Munroe to Maxwell, it was also him who gave me a copy of “Good To Great”, it was Peter who introduced me to ebooks, and it was also him who gave me the book “How To Change The World” By David Bornstein. David Bornstein is one of those who have influenced my thinking the most. With Peter, I had conversations about Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Goodluck Jonathan, Bill Gates, Manoj Bhargava, Cristiano Ronaldo, DMX, Lecrae.. and anything you can think of. More than anyone in my community, Peter has shaped my thinking. I owe him a debt I cannot pay. And to think of his books that I misplaced.

I have often thought to myself what I would have turned out to be without Peter, I really cannot say. My teenage years were a period of crisis, adjusting to the death of a mother and facing a community that has a reputation for everything wrong. Without Peter and all the books he shared with me, my story certainly would have been different. Peter influenced my life not by starting a Book-Troverts, he did it in the simplest way possible, and that has made all the difference.

Stories like this are not new, I think about Thomas Sowell. Sowell narrated how his friend changed his life by introducing him to the library. Sowell is a Professor today whose readings have shaped minds. He said that without that effort by his friend, his story would have been different too. Or Frederick Douglas whose master’s wife began teaching how to read and write. Douglas grew up to become an eloquent speaker and a bestselling author.  

Our call to arms today is to be the Peter’s to our neighbors. It is true, not many of us will get the opportunity to hold high positions of authority in society, but these stories and the story of Book-Troverts show us that we can make a big difference in the smallest ways possible. Maybe all you will ever do is to provide a single book to a particular child, and that will alter his life, and maybe history.

We have read from the books of old, and we are still reading, perhaps it is time we begin to drag others into this fountain. It is time to make sure we are spreading the fire that has caught our hearts. There is an illustrative story in Judges. It’s a story about Samson trying to destroy the farm of Philistines. Rather than go through the farms one after the other, he got foxes, placed them at the edge of the farms. He then set torches to their tails and lit them up. By the next morning, the whole farms were destroyed. The change we seek can only spread in that way, hence we need to spread the fire in all the ways that we can. Personal transformation can easily spread this way.

Now that I have reached here, I do not know how to end this… I do not know how to impress this all the more on our hearts. And I have poured too many words already.

“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation”. We are that generation!

With hope, and love, and in books,

Lengdung Tungchamma.