Are you a reader?

I have always been a reader. I was reading before entering kindergarten. I remember enjoying those Dick and Jane books. (Funny story- I have a late birthday but in our town, the cut off for school was the calendar year-December 31. Being a December child, I was enrolled into class along with all the other children who were born the same year as I. Consequently, when I entered kindergarten in September, I had not had my birthday yet, so I was technically still four. I remember sitting in the Kindergarten classroom- cross-legged on the carpet for story time- and the substitute teacher voiced her surprise that I was reading. She asked me my age and after I told her, she said, “You can’t be four.” Here I was just a little tyke, trying to argue with this sub that “Yes, I was. I am so four.” A generation later, was it any surprise that our son at an early age could and would argue the legs off a table?)

I love words and the power of words and I enjoy reading although lately I wonder if I am truly comprehending what I read? I cannot figure out if it is a post-covid thing? An aging process of the brain? Declining eyesight? Maybe I have deceived myself all these years and I never comprehended things?

An article in The New York Times caught my eye, How to Be a Better Reader. Click HERE to read. I think the main crux is how we need to slow down in an age of quick sound bites. Our son has been working through a book, How to Read a Book, by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. He says is it quite interesting.

Words are powerful. I think it is only through words that people’s hearts and minds can be changed. There is a mystery about words. Word, with a capital “W” represents Jesus/God. The Creator of all things. Words are part of our co-creation- the way we express ourselves through language (written or oral) is a gift from God. When we use words, we are entering into creation, little “c”, with God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:1)

Words are powerful because whether the author of the words realizes it or not, words are reflections of God. Words can be edifying and they can illuminate one’s world. Sadly, like many choices people make, words can be used for evil- they can be hurtful and they can diminish one’s spirit.

It is more than just the words on a page that can change hearts and minds. Storytelling, in any of its forms- drama, plays, poems, lyrics, etc. does too. I think because these formats are not so direct as perhaps facts or statistics on a page. Facts and statistics can change people’s minds but facts can hit you over the head while stories make the point in a sideways, gentler way: in reading a story one internalizes the predicament and hopefully that will evoke an empathetic response. Sometimes it is a repulsive response but either way, one has to mull it over in one’s brain.

What about you? Have you read any books lately that have made you rethink an ideology? Any characters whose lives changed the way you process the world? How you live?

In Rhode Island there is a program- Read Across Rhode Island in which a committee chooses one book a year that is offered to the population to read- libraries, schools, community groups, book clubs, religious groups- anyone who wants to read it. (Probably many states have this type of program.) This year’s book is Solito by Javier Zamora. It is a memoir of his journey to America when he was nine-year’s old. Solito is an incredibly detailed chronicle of Zamora's 3,000-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador — where he spent his childhood without his mom and dad, who had already made their way to the U.S. — through Guatemala and Mexico, and eventually across the U.S. border. He was an unaccompanied minor yet in the harrowing journey he develops a relationship with three strangers who become his “family”. It is their kindness that is one of the beautiful expressions in the book.

His book, told from the point of view of his nine-year-old self is an eye-opener. It emotes empathy and just a glimpse of what the immigration process entails. It humanizes the experience and so, has made me confront some of my pre-conceived ideas. It is just a beautiful (although at times harrowing) story-poetically written and conveys a hope in one’s fellow human that was unexpected. I was able to hear Javier speak when he came through Rhode Island on a book tour. What a thoughtful and loving person. With all that he has experienced in life, he does not appear bitter at all, either in any of the situations he found himself in or with the people who put him in those situations.

For me, this book has placed on my heart the peril and problem of immigration- whether in our country or in others. While I know that the issue is extremely complicated and I do not have enough information to come to any conclusion, I do know that only through reading and stories, like Javier, will I begin to have some understanding.

One of my all time favorite books is Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L’Engle. She writes about the creative process and faith. As she says about stories, “ “Stories are able to help us become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.”

I think it is in the Naming and making sense of chaos that we begin to experience mercy and grace. It is why reading is so powerful and so important.

“Because stories are spells; they change things. When they hook us and reel us into their magic, they change us. It's stories that will save us, in the end. Not just the stories we read or tell, or the stories we want to be in, but the ones that live inside us and the ones we live inside.” – Sharon Blackie. Hagitude