[1] Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren, How to Read a Book: The Classic Bestselling Guide to Reading Books and Accessing Information (New York: Touchstone, 1972), 337–54.
[2] Suzy Platt, ed., Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1989).
[3] C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 140–41.
[4] Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2004), 83.
[5] Rowan Williams, Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction (London: Bloomsbury, 2008), 169.
[6] G. K. Chesterton, “The Red Angel,” Tremendous Trifles (The Project Gutenberg ebook #8092, 1909).
[7] C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 45–46.
Chapter 2Begin at the BEGINNING
Creating Habits, Rhythms, and Space for the Reading Life
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
THIRTY OF US were crammed into the worn corners of an English sitting room that summer afternoon. Thirty shy, awkward, idealistic, opinionated student types who had trekked with our suitcases down the dusty path from the village (after a much longer trek via train or plane for many) to this echoing old house, the home of a Christian community formed for spiritual seekers. We’d come for various reasons: my two-week stay was in preparation for an internship with a theological ministry in Cambridge, but many others had come simply to stay the summer and wrestle with their questions about their faith in a daily, communal setting. Regardless, we’d all bunk in dorm rooms, work three hours a day, study three, eat our meals in common, and ask every question we could muster about faith. But this was our first day. And oh, the awkwardness of earnest amateur philosophers is an ice that only, well, Winnie the Pooh could break.
We had a wise hostess, you see. When every one of us was distracted by the complicated task of balancing a cup of tea and a biscuit (British for cookie), she handed round worn copies of A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. Then she pointed randomly.
“You read Tigger,” she said to a tanned and spindle-legged philosopher who rolled his own cigarettes.
“You read Rabbit,” she said to a bright-eyed theologian whose dark hair swished back and forth as she passionately informed her neighbor about her research on Barth.
Liz Hoare
When I showed up at my assigned fellowship group my first week at Wycliffe, I had no idea that the tutor assigned to lead the group and shepherd me through the next few years would become so dear a friend and mentor. Liz is a fellow lover of good books and beauty, author of Using the Bible in Spiritual Direction, and a mentor whose encouragement and insight have shaped me deeply as both a student and a woman.
The Books That Have Shaped Me
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. From the opening lines to the final “Reader, I married him,” this book has shaped the kind of novels I love to read. It has a wonderful setting, which for me is close to where I call home. The moors, with all their bleakness, have a grandeur and beauty beyond what the eye can see. The house where Jane meets Rochester is atmospheric—and almost a character in the book. When I first read the book, it was as a wonderful story; when I returned to it later, it was Jane’s strength of character that I found so compelling. It is a book for young and old to find insight into the human condition.
The Go-Between God by John V. Taylor. This book blew me away when I first read it in my early twenties. This profound study, with its references to the Holy Spirit in art and its outward-looking emphasis on mission, often forced me to stop reading to ponder the implications. This is a book that warrants reading again—and it demands a response each time. It changed the way I understand what being a Christian is about and challenged me to pray for a greater awareness of God and his action in the world.
Playing with Fire: A Natural Selection of Religious Poetry, edited by Susan Dwyer. There were lots of poetry books in my childhood home, but this was the first themed poetry book I owned. A gift from a close friend who also loved poetry, it introduced me to a wonderful range of English-speaking poets through the ages. It helped me to recognize the importance of poetry in expressing the things we know but can’t find words for ourselves. The poems don’t offer easy answers to questions of faith and life but instead offer that truth told “slant,” which draws us further into life’s big questions.
“You read Piglet.” The hostess smiled at the neighbor, whose eyes were beginning to glaze.
When the books were open and the cups of tea rebalanced, she cleared her throat, her eyes commanding silence. Taking the part of the narrator, she began to read:
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump . . .
Ten minutes later, the awkward quiet and the shy defenses of our little group had been shattered in the laughter kindled by the epic adventures of Pooh, the “Bear of Very Little Brain,” whose childlike philosophy (“the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it”) turned out to have a wisdom deeper than we thought, for it taught us, on that first day of our quest for ultimate knowledge, to laugh at ourselves.
In the years since, I have often blessed that quiet English woman for her wisdom in using a children’s story to open our time in her community. She easily could have begun with some sort of invigorating talk on the search for real truth or the need for spiritual diligence. After many years of witnessing the toils and troubles of young questioners like us, though, she no doubt understood that one of the first things we needed to understand is that the search for wisdom doesn’t end in having the biggest pile of knowledge and hoarding it in a corner by yourself. The capacity to laugh, to listen to your neighbor, to recognize the silliness of your own self-righteousness, to discover that however much you know, it’s only a drop in an ocean you didn’t even make: these are the qualities—the humbled, grateful state of vision—to which real wisdom leads.
It’s easy, in our age of information, to regard reading as something you do to gather knowledge. As if each page read were a coin you could put in the bank until the pile grew high enough to make you rich. There are many books out there that list the classics you must read to become “educated” (really, what does that mean?) or the modern novels you must tuck away in order to be savvy to the world in which we live. Read five books a month, we are told, to really be wise, or is it ten? But I am convinced that neither reading nor wisdom works when it is viewed as something to acquire, a status you reach after a certain number of classics consumed.
This book certainly isn’t based on the assumption that books are a commodity. Reading, rather, is a journey. Reading is the road you walk to discover yourself and your world, to see with renewed vision as you encounter the vision of another. Reading is a way of walking with the wise (Proverbs 13:20) as you trek down the road of life, offering a hand to guide you, a voice to help you look up from the dust and discover the sunset, a friend in whose words you can shelter when life sends you a storm. Reading is a way to live. It requires no particular training or special knowledge (though you can grow in skill and insight), it requires no particular curriculum, and it’s something you begin right where you are, whether you want to read one or ten books in the next year.
In his poem “Singing Bowl,” Malcolm Guite says exactly in lovely verse what I want to say about reading in the rest of this chapter:
Begin the song exactly where you are . . .
Start with the very breath you breathe in now,
This moment’s pulse, this rhythm in your blood.
There is no formula to the reading life, no law stating how many pages we must read per day or which books will set us among the wise and which won’t. The reading life begins merely with the opening of a book—a novel, a poem, a cultural epic, a theological tome, or . . . Winnie-the-Pooh. Of course, we will learn and grow. The things we read will always broaden, awaken, and deepen our knowledge and
experience of the world. Yes, we must begin to make habits that lead us back to reading in an age of distraction. But this is a process of walking, of seedlike growth. As we move in this chapter into the hows and habits of the reading life, I hope you will see the ideas and suggestions that follow not as laws to be kept to the letter, but as rain-splashed, heartfelt postcards sent your way from a fellow traveler who has walked long in the company of good books and found their friendship to be a gift.
In the following sections, we’ll explore mindful ways that you can begin and purposefully engage as a reader. Consider them simply the passing on of maps and guides, the waymarks and skills suggested by readers who have long walked the reading road. The point is simply to help you begin, exactly where you are, to read.
Read What You Love
The reading life may sound like a huge undertaking for which you need a good bit of preparation; in reality, it begins the moment you open a book. But if you are just starting out as a book girl or if you used to love reading and feel that you’ve lost your way, beginning can be the hardest part. This is where Guite’s words come into play: “Begin the song exactly where you are.” In other words, begin with the books you love.
Several years ago, Alan Jacobs, a respected professor of humanities, wrote a delightful essay arguing for reading not just what you should, but what you actually enjoy. As James K. A. Smith notes in his fascinating multivolume work on cultural liturgies (i.e., the habits and rituals by which our lives are formed), we habitually do what we love. Don’t start with The Brothers Karamazov if you haven’t read a good novel in years. (It took me six months to get through that one.) If you love children’s stories, follow in the footsteps of the venerable C. S. Lewis and reread your favorites. (He loved The Wind in the Willows.) Read what sparks your spirit to life in the very place that you are, and let that book lead to another.
Read Regularly
Reading, like so many other good, rich things, must be planned for. In the midst of the crazy pace of modern life, one of the keys to beginning (or resuming) the reading life is simply to consider when and what you will read and to create daily rhythms around the answers you give to those questions.
My mother was a bit of a genius, I think, when it came to getting her children to be regular readers. Every afternoon of my childhood, an hour of quiet descended upon the house. We were given a choice: we could nap, or we could read. And what child is going to sleep when anything else is on offer? I’m so grateful for the choice, though, because what that early habit built in me was the almost bone-deep expectation that I would read every day. The habit became my default mode so that, to this day, I build space for reading into the structure of my day.
Part of this rhythm means choice. You compose the symphony of your own days, and reading requires that you craft it in as one of your themes. Often, the choice to read means you will not do something else. A favorite blogger of mine (at http://soulemama.com), known for a rich, farm-based life and the beautiful handcrafts she makes and garden she cultivates, explains on her “About” page (in answer to many questions, I’m sure) that, no, she doesn’t “do it all.” She chooses: “There are many things that I don’t do, in order to do the things that I love.”
This piece of advice has helped me immensely. I think choice and prioritization are valuable skills to hone in an age of hurried distraction and vital to the cultivation of the reading life. As you plan and prioritize, then, it can help to consider these two questions: When will you read each day? and What will you read each day?
When Will You Read?
Here are a few ideas to consider as you make space in your schedule for reading:
In the morning, before the busyness of your day sets in, read something for spiritual nourishment. My parents each kept a book of theology or devotions next to their Bibles, and this is a habit I have taken up as well. Their morning routine of Scripture and prayer included a short space of theological reading that allowed them to progress over the years through a number of formative books that shaped their spiritual practice and theological identity. Each morning I try to include at least a few paragraphs of spiritual writing or meditation as part of my devotions. When I’m short on time, I fall back on the daily readings assigned as part of my trusty Celtic Daily Prayer. When I have more margin, I’m usually working through a longer book of devotion or spirituality like Eugene Peterson’s Run with the Horses or Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation. In Lent or Advent, I often read a themed daily devotional like the wondrous Watch for the Light.
As part of your daily routine, read a single poem before you walk out the door. In different phases of my life I have greatly enjoyed this habit, whether reading a classic poem before beginning writing work or reading a seasonal (Advent or Lenten) poem before leaving for work in the morning. It takes five minutes or less, but you will be investing in words every morning.
In the afternoon, read a book for rest or relaxation. In my current phase of life, this is a luxury I’m making the most of while I still have the margin. I try to read a novel for half an hour with a cup of tea, if I can manage the time. This provides a space of quiet and imagination in the midst of the day’s work. And now I have scientific approval for this affinity: studies suggest that even six minutes of reading a novel can cut stress levels by two thirds![1] I’m sure this rhythm will change drastically when my own little book girl arrives to fill all my time with her presence. But that just means I’ll be in a new phase of the reading life, renegotiating my time and capacity as a reader, snatching five minutes here or ten minutes in the evening or counting the picture books I perused with my little one as the reading I managed for one day.
In the evening, turn to a riveting novel or an engrossing book of essays, current commentary, or biography. Perhaps you could carve out time when you might otherwise be doing something else like watching TV or spending time online.
Consider when you can read aloud—with family, children, friends, or a spouse. Before we got married, Thomas and I began reading aloud the Harry Potter series after we both finished work, purely for fun. We’ve continued this tradition now that we’re married; we’re still working through Harry Potter (Thomas got me the fully illustrated copy of the second book for our first anniversary), but we also read aloud from books of theology or devotion, stopping to savor and discuss the passages we love or those that instigate debate.
What Will You Read?
Planning for what books you want to read, which you’ll start with, and which are most important to you will help you put your reading time to good use. It empowers you to continue your own education, and it will make the reading life manageable. Instead of planning vaguely to read “the classics” (which I have planned and failed to do many times), you can identify a single classic to begin with or which three you want to read over the course of a year. Individual books and doable goals make the reading life realistic, while writing down your own personal book list makes the reading life tangible, a goal and project by which you can shape your days. Consider these ideas for planning:
Make a yearly reading list. Take time (preferably with a cup of something warm and a slice of something delicious) to list the books you want to read over the course of the year. Be sure to plan for delight as well as growth or exploration. Be realistic but bold. Try something new as well as something beloved.
Make a book basket stocked with the books you plan to read in the coming months. My mom was a good book fairy, with her habit of keeping a basket for each of us children as we grew up that had a rotation of books for us to read: a novel, something historical, a biography, a spiritual book, and a volume of poetry or science, depending on our current interests. I follow that practice to this day, keeping a small stack of “current reading” on my desk that includes books I can pick up for sheer relaxation as well as mental growth.
Keep a record of what you’ve read. Since I was a young teen, I’ve jotted down the titles of the books I read in the back of my current journal. I pu
t stars by those I especially liked. I love seeing the record of what I have actually read. As an adult, I try to jot down the big ideas I loved in most of the books I read, along with a few quotes and a brief word sketch of my impressions when I finish a book. The concreteness of this exercise allows me to mark and continue my own progress and growth on the reading journey.
What Will You Do When You Get Stuck?
I’m always a little shocked at how easy it is to get out of the rhythm of reading. Book girl I may be, but in times of travel or stress, in seasons (ironically) of intensive writing, or when my schedule becomes particularly frenetic, I often find myself surprised at how difficult it can become to manage or even desire fifteen minutes a day of sustained reading. Part of this is sheer exhaustion; a tired mind just can’t quite cling to a written page. Part of this is distraction; I wish it weren’t so, but the wearier my mind grows, the harder it is for me to disconnect from the click and scroll of my online feeds. But all of it is seasonal, part of the ebb and flow of the reading life, the different phases of book-girlish experience.
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