Searching for Depth

My Journey in a wilderness of tripe:

I recently had the opportunity to brows my local Barnes and Nobel establishment. First thing I usually do is look for the religion and the philosophy sections. I like to see what great works are being written and read. I like to brows the fine authors and see what ideas are being kicked around. So I began my search for ideas.

First I found the "Spirituality" section -

It was all I could do to keep from retching. I have no interest in books of this nature unless they were looking at the deep mystical theology of the desert fathers and mothers or of the mystics of the 10th, 11th, 12th centuries and beyond. There is a rich tradition of mysticism within Christianity but it was not represented in this section. I continued my search:

 In my mind this is worse than "Spirituality." Kinda flakey and lacking a solid commitmnet to a tradition (just pick one, please!).
I continued on my search and found something hopeful:

Hooray! Something I could sink my teeth into. Yet the books considering Ecclesiology, Reconciliation, or the history of the Anabaptists were not there. Nor were the writings of the early Christians or current theologians. It was not and aweful section, but was lacking the deep, intellectual works that I wanted. I wanted a great meal and I got a pizza delivery instead

Wanting to find something substantional, I began to look for the philosophy. This was not easy to find because it was not right next to Christianity. Instead my search  went from bad:

To worse:

Perhaps near psychology I would find the solace of Philosophy:

mostly Pop-psychology neglecting the deeper theories and ideas of the academy. Nothing for one to sink his or her teeth into. Surrounding Psychology was not philosophy, but more dribble:

I suppose these books are good, but I did not see anything based on deep thought, theory, or ideas.


Finally I found it:

That was it. One small section hidden away from searching eyes that might accidentally stumble upon ideas that threaten to change one's world-view. It was almost as if the store management was embarrassed to have such a selection of books. It was good to look at the titles, to hold the book and read the summaries, and to realize that I will probably never read all of these books. I was touching an ongoing conversation with people who see the importance of ideas, the importance of thinking, and stepping back, and thinking some more. For a fleeting moment I did not feel alone.

Again, I wish there was a "theology" section within the philosophy. Actually Theology should have its own section because, as Thomas Aquinas said, it is the "queen of the sciences" with philosophy as her "handmaiden" but you can't always get what you want.

This is a sad reflection on our approach to philosophy, theology, and great thinking in general. It is not that the conversations are dying, but that they are not being shared with others. Maybe I will open a bookstore that only sells books that have footnotes and/or a bibliography or is over 200 pages long, or takes more than two days to read. I probably would go out of business within the first 24 hours, but at least I would have my integrity and some people to talk to.