I was impressed by a tv ad years ago. It showed a football coach in the locker room calling for attention and explaining that a chaplain was about to ask for blessings for the game. He said something like "Please give Father Clancy your attention." As the priest finished, the coach said something like "Pastor Jones will now ask for a blessing." As the pastor finished a short invocation, the camera showed another man wearing a Jewish skull cap, a man in Buddhist-type robes, a Native American man who looked like a spiritual dancer and many other religious and spiritual types. The impression is that there are too many blessers to accommodate the time schedule and the impatience to hold the football game.
Whether we are inviting guests for an occasion or listing books or movies we plan to get to, there are limits. We have only limited attention, limited patience and limited memory to remember our own plans and wishes. If you are sympathetic to the plight of orphans and I seem to be all taken up with concerns about the climate, your focus and my cause may make each of us dismiss the other as irrelevant and basically unconcerned with important situations that deserve attention. When I see titles like "500 Places You Must See" or "The 1000 Must-Reads Before You Die", I am seeing a lack of focus and restraint.
How about recommending A book you think I would enjoy or ONE place for me to visit? If you feel real tender about not mentioning 999 other really good places, the tenderness, the sorrow, the pity that I may not get to those other wonderful places, that is the pain that editors and librarians and broad-minded people feel. Maybe you can console yourself with the realization that I have limits, plus new respect for your bravery and commitment to using your strength of character to trim your recommendations down to a usable, valuable size. I may learn to use your recommendations as good advice.
