Treasure at Powell's

Growing up near to Portland, Oregon, there has always been one place downtown where I could spend inordinate amounts of time, Powell's Bookstore. On Wednesday I headed down with my girlfriend to enjoy my last night at home before a two-month stretch of very busy rotations which start tomorrow. When I go to Powell's I often find something that I consider to be somewhat of a treasure, usually for a surprisingly low price.

I was not disappointed Wednesday as I picked up a book that had been on my list of things to acquire for a long time. One of my favorite subjects is church history and being of mostly Welsh, Scottish and English descent, the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, written around AD 731, is a book I've long wanted to read. I imagine that in reading it, I will be reading a history of how my own distant ancestors were first introduced to the saving power of the gospel of Jesus Christ so many centuries ago by missionaries coming from Europe and how my church, the Church of England, was born.

The copy I found was printed in 1903 in London and is very good shape. The price I paid was far lower than I would have imagined. If I ever finish residency maybe I'll be able to read it but for now it will be a very important addition to the church history shelf in my bookcase.

A lithograph of The Monastery of Jarrow on the Tyne "where Bede lived and died"