The Waiting Scanner

My uncle, Emanuel J. Sorenson, was a missionary in Ethiopia and Jamaica before and after World War II. Once a week there will be story that provides a glimpse of what missionary life was like for his family, as related by his daughter and my cousin, Jane Spear.

The books are stacked together neatly. They are piling higher and higher. On top is the book Ocean of Grass, a documentary on the Florida Everglades. It is half open to the place where I put it aside coming back on the airplane from Florida. The enemy had taken over. The small battle was lost. But the war for reading becomes intensified.

Who can say when the love of books began, because it has always been there. Seeking refuge from annoyance of any kind, there was the kindly old tree limb, which spread out over the wall of Kabana. Having found it, I climbed up to the curve where the limb joined the trunk and, hidden from view, this was one of my favorite places of refuge. From here came alive the entire world: The crusaders on their way to Jerusalem, Pollyanna in efforts to bring love, beautiful rich stories from the Bible, even Aesop’s fables. My father, who knew of my books, approved of them. This surprised me when it came to fables. But in his wisdom, he knew that our history and culture has such fables and myths to be discerned as such. So, hidden up high in the tree in Africa, I spent many happy hours, never discovered.

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