“For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6

They say if you know the books in a person’s library you will know an important piece of who they are.

Looking up from my computer screen to the shelves overhead, I scan just a few of the more than 1,000 books that surround me – not counting the ones I have given away or sold: “Emotional Intelligence” by Daniel Coleman, “St. Francis of Assisi,” by G.K. Chesterton; “A Grief Observed,” by C.S. Lewis; “The Wisdom of the Irish” and “Celtic Inspirations;” three books by Father Richard Rohr, one by Father Ronald Rolheiser and “Cold Sassy Tree ” by Olive Ann Burns – one of two books of fiction that I have managed to read from beginning to end during the past 15 years.

Surveying the room, I wonder what it is I am looking for in all the pages of these books that span myriad topics of art and music, literature and religion, ancient civilizations, effective leadership, philosophy, prayer and, even, mystical meditations on the Hebrew alphabet.  What do these books say about me, and why does it matter?

“Know thyself” is an ancient maxim, an inscription of which is found on the portal of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, but which may well date back to the Egyptian dynasties of 3,000 B.C. It is a universal maxim appearing throughout the centuries in countries and cultures around the world, and continues in contemporary culture to be preached as the pinnacle of knowledge– the knowledge of self.

Socrates, the classical Greek philosopher and founder of western philosophy, stressed the need for self-knowledge above all other knowledge, emphasizing humbly in his dialogues with students that it was something for which he continued to search. He said, “I am not yet able, as the Delphic inscription has it, to know myself; so it seems to me ridiculous, when I do not yet know that, to investigate irrelevant things.”

I would hesitate to argue with Socrates, or 5,000 years of ancient wisdom, about the value of self-knowledge for human growth and fulfillment, but in my own search for self, which often proves elusive, I have welcomed the wisdom of another teacher, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who wrote: "’Know Thy God’ . . . rather than ‘Know Thyself’ is the categorical imperative of the biblical man. There is no self-understanding without God-understanding.”

For those who believe in the God of Scripture, and whose faith leads them to a life oriented to God, the search for self-knowledge becomes more than a search for the truth of one person’s existence. It becomes a search for the truth of God, for a means of responding in love to a God who loves first and forever.

For the Greeks, wrote Msgr. John Oesterreicher, in his work, “The Tears of God,” the truth “was something that could be thought of, something that could be meditated upon, and spoken about. For the Hebrews, it was something that had to be done and live. ‘To do the truth in love’ – an expression that is to be found in Ephesians 4:15 … would have seemed absurd and even laughable to the Greeks. To the sons and daughters of Israel, however, it was their greatest joy … ‘to walk in the truth and in fidelity.’”

This brilliant priest, who also founded the Institute of Judeo-Christian studies in Seton Hall University, South Orange, closes his brief theological investigation with these words from Scripture: “God is love.”

Outside of all the books that may fill our libraries, it is in this truth we discover who we are.

“God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:16,17).

Mary Morrell is the managing editor of The Monitor.