More and more Maine homes that I am in are missing televisions.

The electronic babysitter and killer of so much time where everyone gets the thousand yard stare, detaches, becomes uncommunicative. Even during commercials. Reading, other recreational opportunities being exercised instead of just plugging into the tube.

When the kids were young beginning readers I was lucky to be able to get them into the local Cary Library summer reading program. As a parent starting the joy of nightly bedtime stories by reading, by sharing together books like the CS Lewis Chronicles of Narnia series to the kids caused a spark. One that flamed the desire to discover the joy of reading a good book.

So it was the kids that exposed me to CS Lewis initially and I am still feasting on his works.

My summer reading program today started the morning with passages from “Reflections on the Psalms”. Today’s food for thought from Lewis about silence.

“Silence is a good refuge. People will not notice it nearly so easily as we tend to suppose. And (better still) few of us enjoy it as we might be danger of enjoying more forcible methods. Disagreement can, I think, sometimes be expressed without the appearance of priggery, if it is done arguementatively not dictorially: support will often come from some most unlikely member of the party, or from more than one, til we discover that those who were silently dissentient were actually a majority. A discussion of real interest may follow. Of course the right side may be defeated in it. That matters very much less than I used to think. The very man who has argued you down will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said.

The book I read this passage from this morning retreived from the Maine farm home I grew up in that was loaded with a goldmine of literary works.

To delve in to, digest and ponder. What makes the books extra special is underlined sections where a parent high lighted a key point that need emphasizing to the reader before me. Even when your parents are gone from this Earth, lessons they learned are still shared with those left behind it seems. Just like flower gardens they established, morals, values, life’s cycle continues.

Maine, grab a good book, pull up a hammock by some waterfront and feel a wash of contentment. Take refuge in the silence, the peace and quiet of the place with the space call Maine. Get your kids into a Maine library summer reading program!

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com.