Good morning and God bless you! I set a goal for 2017 to read twenty books. I actually read twenty-three and have adjusted my 2018 goal to twenty-five books. Up through seventh grade I pretty much only read sports books. It was a challenge to expand the scope of my reading. My dad and sister were the most prolific readers in my family growing up. Beverly and I read a lot at the house and on the road and we like very different kinds of books.
I enjoy ministry in the Wayland community. In 2017, I joined the Friends of Henika District Library group (http://henikalibrary.org/friends-of-the-henika-district-library/). We meet monthly and I am not in charge. One emphasis we are exploring is adult literacy. It may result in some ministry opportunities for us in the future. But the work has reminded me how much I enjoy reading and how important literacy is for all people. It affects our quality of life.
Annie Dillard, a favorite author of mine since seminary, writes, “There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by… Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading — that is a good life” (The Writing Life).
Reading can change us. St. Augustine, a theologian and Bishop of the early Christian Church, writes of this call to conversion in the midst of agonizing soul-searching:
So was I speaking and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice, as of boy or girl, I know not, chanting, and oft repeating, “Take up and read; Take up and read.” Instantly, my countenance altered… So checking the torrent of my tears, I arose; interpreting it to be no other than a command from God to open the book, and read the first chapter I should find (Confessions of St. Augustine, Chapter XII; my emphasis).
I am enjoying our adult Sunday School class. We made it through Genesis in a little more than a year, discussing a chapter per week. Bea Stewart calculated that at our rate we would get through the whole Bible in about twenty-two years. You really need to buckle up when you walk into class these days as we are now in Acts. I have a pastoral and personal concern that we be grounded in our faith so that our actions have an intensity and integrity to face opposition and contention in the world. Reading is a primary way for me to experience the depth of discipleship and joy of community life.
A new author I have discovered through Twitter is Danielle L. (D.L.) Mayfield. She has recently started a new series, “A Sabbath Way of Reading – Reading to Save Our Souls,” on her blog, Off the Page (https://offthepage.com/2017/12/27/a-sabbath-way-of-reading/):
Reading plays a crucial role in our learning how to act faithfully in the world, to act for the common good of our churches, our neighborhoods, and the world. Apart from reading scripture and interpreting it (another act that itself requires a good deal of reading), we can’t give an account of how or why we do certain things. I want to challenge the church to think about all the ways we read and to see how reading carefully and well helps us to act with more understanding and more compassion in any given situation (C. Christopher Smith in A Sabbath Way of Reading – Reading to Save Our Souls in Off the Page by D. L. Mayfield, 12/27/17; my emphasis)
I pray for a rich and inspiring year of reading for you. Let’s share what we are finding helpful. So that acting with more understanding and more compassion may be the distinguishing marks of our congregation in 2018.