I’ve been thinking lately about the ways we read. Ways? Most of us think reading is sitting in your favorite spot, a physical book in hand, our favorite drink at our side, and under good light.

But readers are far more versatile than that. The book could be an e-reader or tablet. Or an app on our phone, used on a bus, or train, or tram, or sitting at an airplane gate.

Or we may be “reading” by listening to someone read a book. While we drive. Or walk. Or exercise. Or cook.

Of course we don’t just read books. There are magazines, newspapers, instruction books, employee and student handbooks. even cereal boxes!

But we don’t just read silently. or alone. Even when it appears we are, we really are in conversation with the author, a communion of minds and thoughts.

We read aloud. As children called on in class. When we want to hear the sound, the rhythm of words in a poem. I read aloud when I edit an article. Sometimes I read dense writing aloud, phrase by phrase, aurally unpacking closely written ideas.

We read aloud to others. In church or synagogue, reading lectionaries or sacred texts. Sometimes one reader. Sometimes responsively or antiphonally. Sometimes in unison, joining our voices together. Some of us gather in small groups to study the Bible, and often before discussing a text, it will be read aloud.

Authors give readings of their works. We sometimes read favorite passages to each other. Lovers read poetry to each other…or at least once did.

Before audiobooks, my wife and I read to each other on long car trips. And we cherished family read aloud times at our son’s bedtime, sometimes all snuggled up on a sofa, as when we read through the Little House books.

We read to those unable to read. I taped textbook readings for a sight-impaired student. I shudder to think of the hours he spent listening to my voice! I wish I had thought to throw in a few jokes!

We read to the infirm who cannot read. We read to those seriously ill, even nearing death, words of comfort from Psalms, poetry, perhaps an author favored by us both.

We read aloud on holidays, texts appropriate to the day. “I Have A Dream” on Martin Luther King Day, the Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, “The Night Before Christmas” on Christmas Eve, the Seven Last Words on Good Friday.

All this is amazing for a learned skill, acquired with varying degrees of difficulty. As I look at all the ways we read, I’m struck with how much reading is part of the warp and woof of our lives. It’s a cultural good worth preserving, a way of preserving richness and imagination against the forces of banality and entropy that would wear away at us.

All the ways we read.