In response to a student's essay, Dan Conrad asked, What was the first book that "actually had some impact on me?"

Well, I'm seconding the question, and offering my own experience.

It took some rummaging through my memory and my bookshelves to come up with the first one.

Many authors made the short list: Thomas Jefferson (his translation of the New Testament), Loren Eiseley, Albert Schweitzer, Teilhard deChardin, Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles), Erich Fromm, T.S. Eliot, Eugen Herrigel (Zen in the Art of Archery) and others.

I thought I'd found the first one when I came across my first paperback edition of Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. (I bought it at the Rexall Drug Store in Redwood Falls in 1962--"A nation-wide sensation at $5.95, Now complete and unabridged 75¢.") It did change my thinking in serious ways.

By the time I'd thought back that far, I was serious and remembering really long-ago firsts. And what came to mind was a discussion I had with my mother when I was probably somewhat younger than ten-year-old David. How appropriate that the first book that really had an impact on me was Genesis.

I don't know if there was a Sunday School lesson involved or if we were just reading the Bible, but we were at the very start: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

My question was one that Democritus would have asked (Have you gone and read that part of Sophie's World yet?): "How could God create heaven and earth out of nothing?" My mother was great at answering these questions. Of course, I don't know exactly what she said, but I do know that I took away from that conversation. She probably said something like, "That was the miracle of creation, and we have to take it on faith that that is what God did."

I learned something about faith. I learned something about empirical science (although I wouldn't have used that label). Mostly I learned something about the mystical possibilities of the human mind reflecting on concrete reality. God created heaven and earth; lightness and dark; land and sea. Before that nothing but God? Neither heaven nor earth? Neither light nor dark? Neither land nor sea? Take it on faith? Wow!

The world was a fantastic place. And there were things we probably couldn't even conceive of--neither light nor dark existing; the infinity of the universe, perhaps. Faith had to be a pretty powerful thing to overcome our analysis and observation.

I still love the mysteries of cosmology and astronomy, of biology and physics. I love scientific analysis and explanation, but I also appreciate the scientist who admits to not knowing. I love the Zen koans (riddles) and their mystical implications. I love the questions of theology and history and anthropology, and I love the theologians, historians, and anthropologists who confess their own wonder and lack of certainty--even, or perhaps especially when they don't have a faith that provides a resting place for the mind with uncertainty.

I still think Genesis is a pretty good book. I was rereading it in light of what I've been teaching this fall about the early days of humans and "civilization." I noticed Genesis appears to endorse astrology ("let them [the stars] be for signs and for seasons" 1.14), advocate farming (invented about 12,000 years ago), and refer to the fourth millennium B.C.E. kingdoms of Kush on the Nile and Assyria in northern Mesopotamia (near the rivers that flowed out of Eden). Interesting history, too. There is the downside -- especially the misogyny, but I want to leave this for now with how it affected me at a very young age.

Books have always been special, but Genesis was, without doubt, the first one that really had an impact on me and my thinking. Thanks for the idea, Dan. It's a wonderful exercise. Anybody else? Want to do a little reflection and tell us about the first book that had an impact on you.

Remember, it's here that you can tell a little bit of the world what you think. Write soon,