reading

Reading 2.0?

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I continue to find Jason Merkoski’s Burning the Page quite thought provoking.  One of his chapters is titled “Reading 2.0” after the software convention of naming new versions.  Merkoski explores some of the ways reading might change with the digitization of texts, particular with the search capacity of Google. He proposes that in fact all books are part of One Book and that digitization more possible to realize this reality.

There is an aspect of this that I thoroughly appreciate.  As I commented in “My Books Are Talking To Each Other“, books do converse with each other and are artifacts of a great human conversation that spans the ages. Understanding how an earlier writer influences the writer whose work I’m reading makes my reading of that work deeper. The Great Books series even included a Syntopicon to catalog 102 Great Ideas and references to them in the Great Books. With the search capabilities of Google and the ability to link content via hypertext, Merkoski contends that it is instantly possible to trace this “conversation” from one book to the next and to approach the reality of “one book”.

While aspects of this seem attractive, this also seems a prescription for what I might call “Reading ADHD”, an addiction to reading “rabbit trails” where one never follows just one work to its conclusion.  In limited form, such a capability could enhance our understanding of key ideas in a text. Annotated works serve a similar function.  Run rampant, and it would seem to be the ultimate reading distraction–a distraction to attentive reading.  I wonder if in fact it could function to re-wire the brain in ways that increase the prevalence of true ADHD?

I was staying with a friend in Chicago last night who works as a reference librarian for one of the major universities in Chicago and we got to talking about this.  He spoke of “losing the experience of drinking deeply and slowly from one book” that may be a result of such reading. The wonder of a really good book is to immerse oneself in this particular author’s vision of the world, not to have that vision diffused by all the others who have what seem “related” thoughts.

As we develop these capacities, I wonder if we need to be mindful of what makes for “good reading”.  I wonder if at the very least whether it means that we can turn on or off these functions as appropriate. How do you think digital media will change reading? Do you think there are downsides to this technology that should be avoided or addressed? How do you think reading could be enhanced with this technology? It seems to many that this is a change that is inevitably coming. What I wonder is whether the particular shape of that change is inevitable. Or do we have choices, some better, and some worse? What do you think?

Seven Minutes a Day

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Seven minutes a day. That is the amount of time the average American spends reading according to Jason Merkoski in Burning the Page. What I suspect this means is that many Americans do not read at all, other than texts on their phones and Facebook status updates. The truth is though, even our spouses may be getting shortchanged by our addiction to our phones and social media.  A Daily Mail story indicates we spend more time on our phones than with our spouses (119 to 97 minutes per day).

What I wonder about is how this changes our capacity to think and imagine. Visual media does so much of our imagining for us. What happens to the richness of our interior lives when our imaginations are not captured by great stories? And what happens to our capacity for critical thinking and dealing with complex ideas when everything is reduced to soundbites and 144 character snippets?

Reading more is not a problem for me (!), but here are some thoughts (assuming one wants to read more) for finding a few more minutes to read in a day (just don’t take them away from a significant other!):

1. Online and smartphone activity can be a huge time sink. Don’t always carry your phone, particularly when you come home from work. Consider setting limits to how often you check messages.

2. Find something your really like to read–don’t force yourself to read something that you think you “should” read.

3. Carry that book, or magazine, or the e-reader it is loaded on in your bag so you can pull it out when you have a few minutes over lunch, on public transportation, at the airport or while you wait for an appointment.

4. Some find they can read and work out on an exercise bike or treadmill.

5. One less TV show a week could mean 30 minutes to an hour more time to read. Do you really need to watch another season of American Idol?

How have you found time to read? When were you last engrossed with a book? And what was it your were reading? Chances are, finding time wasn’t a problem…

Review: Discovering Lectio Divina: Bringing Scripture Into Ordinary Life

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Discovering Lectio Divina: Bringing Scripture Into Ordinary Life
Discovering Lectio Divina: Bringing Scripture Into Ordinary Life by Evan B. Howard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lectio divina is an ancient practice of reflective reading and praying about the scriptures that includes the elements of slow and repeated reading (lectio), reflection (meditatio), prayer in response to one’s reflections (oratio) and resting in God’s presence (contemplatio).

What Wilhoit and Howard give us is not a “how to” manual for lectio so much as a deeply theological and formational reflection of what it means to weave this discipline into one’s life. They begin with our thirst for God and the scriptures as God’s speech, his invitation to relationship.

They then focus on the fact that we do not come alone as we read the text but read with and in the Spirit’s presence who helps us understand. The authors walk us through their own reading experience in the story of Jesus and the paralytic in Luke 5:17-26.

Succeeding chapters focus on meditating (with a fascinating discussion of meditation being compared to a dog growling over/gnawing a bone), praying (“prayer as the house that lectio divina inhabits” is a particularly striking idea), and contemplation (they discuss how in relationships, we have our verbal conversation, our thoughts of the other as we speak, and then a more foundational level, our awareness of our presence in the presence of the other). Each flesh out the bare bones of the different elements of lectio. The concluding chapter speaks of the rhythm of life in which scripture leads into action and action leads into scripture.

Overall, I found this a very helpful book. Beyond the personal examples shared, I would have found some exercises in lectio helpful, particularly for those new to the practice. The book assumes that readers will translate concepts into practice. However, for those already acquainted with the practice, the book is quite helpful in taking one deeper into how lectio divina helps us encounter the living God.

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Prayers Before Reading

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All of life is spiritual. As a person of faith, I make no divisions between sacred and secular, material and spiritual. That’s one of the reasons that I and many others give some kind of prayer of thanks before eating. Norman Wirzba, a writer on sustainable agriculture and good eating has written, “Food is God’s love made edible.” Food is literally the substance of physical life–what I eat becomes part of who I am. For Christians, one of our most profound practices, variously called the Eucharist, the Lord’s supper, or communion, is basically a meal in which we are reminded of Christ as our spiritual food, our life.

Why then do I rarely or never pray before reading? Maybe I think that because I’m “good” at this I don’t need to. Maybe I don’t think it is that important. Yet books nourish my soul, make me laugh, cause me to think, give me perspective. Why then shouldn’t I give thanks for them, ask for understanding as I read (particularly challenging texts), and for discernment and perspective as to how to respond to what I read? It seems to me that if the first sentence I wrote is true, then books and reading are spiritual and just as worthy of God’s attention as my food.

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Below is a prayer attributed to one of the greatest scholars of the church, Thomas Aquinas.  While I might not use exactly these words, the thought are ones that might serve as a good guide for a prayer before reading:

Thomas Aquinas Prayer Before Study

Ineffable Creator,
Who, from the treasures of Your wisdom,
has established three hierarchies of angels,
has arrayed them in marvelous order
above the fiery heavens,
and has marshaled the regions
of the universe with such artful skill,

You are proclaimed
the true font of light and wisdom,
and the primal origin
raised high beyond all things.

Pour forth a ray of Your brightness
into the darkened places of our minds;
disperse from our souls
the twofold darkness
into which we were born:
sin and ignorance.

You make eloquent the tongues of infants.
Refine our speech
and pour forth upon our lips
the goodness of Your blessing.

Grant to us
keenness of mind,
capacity to remember,
skill in learning,
subtlety to interpret,
and eloquence in speech.

May You
guide the beginning of our work,
direct its progress,
and bring it to completion.
You Who are true God and true Man,
Who live and reign, world without end.

Amen

I’d love to know what you think of this and how you connect your reading to your spirituality.

“You Read So I Don’t Have To”

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A colleague of mine made this comment to me recently.  The comment was partly joking and mostly appreciative. He was saying that my reviews of books were helpful to him in becoming aware of books that are relevant to our work but that he did not have time to read.  Part of me was glad to hear this while part of me felt a bit sheepish about being “out there” as a bookworm.  Alas, it is true!

It is also true that I’ve always had a passion for learning things so I can share them with others to their benefit.  It seems that books, like all good gifts, are meant to be shared.  When books were hand printed and primarily the property of the monasteries, reading was a social activity, done aloud for the benefit of the whole community.  With the Gutenberg revolution and the rise of literacy, books became available to the masses, and reading became a more solitary activity.

Reviews are one of the ways the riches (or lack thereof) of the books we read can be shared with others and serve as one way of maintaining a communal practice of reading and talking about books.  Blogs and social media like GoodReads and Amazon reviews make this possible for more of us on a wider scale than we may have imagined.

Truth is that others read so that I don’t have to.  The reviews others post or write for various reviews help me to be conversant with books I’ll never get around to reading. Indeed, one of the most sobering thoughts is even with good health, I probably won’t read more than a couple thousand books in the remainder of my life.  One post I came across estimated there were 129,864,880 books in the world as of 2010. Obviously, there are a few I’ll never get to reading!  Reviews are one tool that helps me identify what is worth reading, become aware of other worthwhile books I am not able to get to, as well as some of the books that it is just not worth my time to read.

So I guess I should be glad when someone finds a review helpful–even if they don’t want to read the book.  And if you also review books, thank you for reading for me and sharing that experience!

So what reviews do you follow and what do you find most helpful in a review?