In an article in Christianity Today (@ctmagazine), Marilyn Chandler McEntyre writes about the importance of reading, saying it “can change the way we listen to the most ordinary conversation.”
I have long valued literary theorist Kenneth Burke's simple observation that literature is ‘equipment for living.’ We glean what we need from it as we go. In each reading of a book or poem or play, we may be addressed in new ways, depending on what we need from it, even if we are not fully aware of those needs. The skill of good reading is not only to notice what we notice, but also to allow ourselves to be addressed. To take it personally. To ask, even as we read secular texts, that the Holy Spirit enable us to receive whatever gift is there for our growth and our use. What we hope for most is that as we make our way through a wilderness of printed, spoken, and electronically transmitted words, we will continue to glean what will help us navigate wisely and kindly—and also wittily—a world in which competing discourses can so easily confuse us in seeking truth and entice us falsely.
In all our concentration trying to forecast where publishing is headed as a result of the digital revolution, we must remember the basic premise remains foundational just as it did centuries ago: reading, itself, sparks vitality.
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